Philosophic Prophecy

“A man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.”—Walden.

"The magnificent cause of being, The imagination, the one reality In this imagined world"—Wallace Stevens

I want to try again at characterizing philosophic prophecy (recall here, here). I introduce the concept, first, by explaining how it relates to two other better known concepts -- the so-called “self-fulfilling prophecy” and the “self-refuting prediction” -- to which it bears a close family resemblance. Then I give a list of ten characteristics of philosophic prophecy (with references to texts that instantiate these). I conclude by contrasting philosophic prophecy to so-called “Noble lies” and “Straussian esoteric readings” with which it can be easily mixed up.

According to the famous sociologist of science, Robert K. Merton, “

“The self-fulfilling prophecy” is “in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true. This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.” Robert Merton.

By contrast, self-refuting predictions start out as a true description of the situation that evokes behavior that makes the originally true conception eventually come out false. Self-fulfilling prophesies and self-refuting predictions take it for granted that publicly expressed ideas can have a meaningful effect on the world. In particular, their impact can change the truth-functional status of descriptions of the world. Of course, not all utterances are like this. Planetary orbits are generally not meaningfully impacted by the claims we make about them (although that could change). Even in the social sciences there is a class of theorems that show that there are successful, non-trivial predictions that need not change the underlying system. Let’s leave aside writings that do not impact the subject-matter of which they speak.

Here I focus on a further class of writings that can impact the world. Philosophic prophecies are structurally akin to self-fulfilling prophecies except that they take a merely possible, even improbable conceptualization of a situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original conception come out true, or nearly enough true. To be sure the outcome is a contingent fact, i.e., the existence of a philosophic prophecy is necessary, but not sufficient for an intended outcome.

In order to characterize philosophic prophecy more fully, I distinguish ten features in it:

1. It is ‘secular’ prophecy. By this I mean to distinguish it from biblical and other religious prophets. It is prophecy by philosophers. Having said that, the content of philosophical prophecy may well be religious (on a suitably broad understanding of it) or even theological in character. For example, Bacon’s New Atlantis offers a narrative of an island society that is indirectly controlled by a secret scientific community that presents itself as a priestly society; the whole narrative is infused with religious themes and motifs. Salomon’s House must have seem very improbable to Bacon’s initial readers. But within forty years in Sprat’s official The History of the Royal Society of London the opening poem already treats Bacon as a prophetic visionary “like Moses,” who had shepherded his flock past “the barren wilderness” to the “very border” of the “promised land” of the Royal Society. (See also here.)
2. Philosophic prophecy is not primarily about offering predictions; it is about intending to help create a possible future. José Benardete has nicely articulated this as follows, “our whole approach presupposes a teleological account of concepts and, a fortiori, a teleological account of man as the user of concept.” Of course, predictions can enter into the content of a philosophic prophecy. Rhetorically, even negative predictions can be intended to produce an alternative outcome. For example, consider Adam Smith’s claim,

   “To expect, indeed, that the freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or Utopia should ever be established in it. Not only the prejudices of the public, but what is much more unconquerable, the private interests of many individuals, irresistibly oppose it.” (Wealth of Nations)

   While Smith’s words can be taken as a mere statement of fact, they are more likely intended to rouse (part of) the public so that they overcome the private interests of some. One reason to doubt that Smith, who taught rhetoric, is making a purely factual claim (i.e., “there was once freedom of trade in these isles, let us restore it henceforth”) is that other than here, there is no evidence that he thought that there ever was a genuine “freedom of trade” in Great Britain. In context Smith is talking primarily about guild and settlement laws that hinder poor people from moving into areas and industries with employment opportunities.

   Moreover, Smith is explicitly comparing his advocacy of free trade with projects (by Harrington and More) that are also species of philosophic prophecy, too. But in doing so he highlights the crucial difference between his project and theirs: his proposal require no constitutional changes to existing institutions and practices nor dramatic improvements in human nature. All that is required is a change of public perception about what seems possible and reasonable as well as incremental (“only by slow gradations, and with a good deal of reserve and circumspection”) policy changes so that more and more individuals come to experience and support their interest in free trade.

3. In accord with the teleological conception of philosophic prophecy: it is a necessary, albeit almost never sufficient, condition for the prophesied future. Befitting a teleological concept, philosophic prophecies can fail, too. (Philosophic prophecy is not a success term.)
4. Philosophic prophecy appeals to the imagination often by way of narrative (cf. Descartes’ autobiography in the Discourse on Method and the account of his three dreams in Baillet’s Life; Thoreau’s Walden) dialogues, poetry, history, travel reports (Cf. Bacon’s New Atlantis), mythic history (cf. Phaedrus 229), the introduction of novel or transmutation of existing vocabulary, etc. (Think of all that is conveyed by the Platonic category muthos). Here I appeal to a contrast with rational persuasion by way of (formal/deductive/structured) argument (viz. Platonic logos). The point is not that philosophers sometimes illustrate their claims by way of poetic imagery. Rather philosophic prophecy makes something -- however improbable -- visible that was in some sense previously inconceivable. A nice illustration of what I have mind can be found in the writings of Benardete, while commenting on Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

   “Newton’s first law of motion describes how every body would act if it were free of all impressed forces. Owing to universal gravitation there is, and can be, no such body. Revealing the nature of every body “as it would be found in trials to which it cannot be exposed,” Newton’s first law is to be seen as a true contrary-to-fact conditional in the subjunctive mood. No mere “mirror of life,” it is in his subjunctive not indicative mood that the poet can emulate the physicist. Although oracular witches are contrary to nature, the poet may invoke them in the antecedent of a contrary-to-fact conditional and thereby reveal, in the consequent, what no mirror of life could reveal.” (73)

   What is true here of Shakespeare’s poetry is also true of philosophic prophecy: new concepts can reveal an otherwise invisible reality—by this “invisible reality” I do not primarily mean very small or very distant objects (although these are not excluded). Rather, in science and in philosophy, we need concepts that describe hard-to-detect counter-factuals. In particular, concepts that are implicated in philosophic prophecy make visible intentional objects. To put the point simply: in virtue of the productions of the imagination and people’s subsequent beliefs philosophic prophets (help) create, in part, new possible social realities.

   Thus, I do not mean to suggest that the content of the philosophic prophecy is irrational or in opposition to reason. On the contrary, in general philosophic prophecy is meant to enhance the claims of reason. In particular, philosophic prophecy often simultaneously intends to promote the cause of reason as well as justice, humanity, etc. The motive, if discernible, behind philosophic prophecy is a kind of philosophic philanthropy, that is, to “refresh life.”

5. One reason why I refer to the “imagination” is that philosophic prophecy often consists of claims that are beyond knowable at the time of articulation, but that avoid (obvious) falsehoods. A prominent deployment of this strategy is offered by Spinoza’s “tenets of universal faith” in chapter 14 of his Theological Political Treatise (TTP). According to Spinoza many of these tenets “have not even a shadow of the truth, so long the person who accepts them does not know them to be false” (173, (TTP) 14.20; GIII: 176). Now Daniel Garber glosses this as follows: “This is quite crucial: a belief can be efficacious in the producing obedience only if it genuinely believed to be true. As soon as it is known to be false, it is no longer capable of supporting the practice of obedience,” (173; emphasis in original.) Garber ignores that there is a gap between not knowing that something is false and genuinely believing that it is true. The tenets can be beyond rationally knowable. What is crucial is that the contents of philosophic prophecy ought to avoid knowable falsehood. So, existing knowledge and extrapolations from it are important constraints on philosophic prophecy.
6. Another reason why I refer to the “imagination,” is that philosophic prophecy is, thus, (ultimately) accepted on faith. Philosophic prophecy is taken on magisterial authority. It is often designed to contest the magisterial authority of other schools, narratives, etc. This is why we often find it interwoven with origin myths, foundational texts, etc.
7. The previous, sixth characteristic is related to a very useful criterion to discern whether one is dealing with an author who engages with or is taken to engage in philosophic prophecy: nearly always s/he articulates a dialectic or rhetoric between true versus false philosophy or true versus false philosophers (teachers/experts, etc.) A prominent early modern example of this rhetoric can be found in Hume’s Treatise, who engages in a whole dialectic between false and true philosophy. In particular, it is especially characteristic of philosophic prophecy to invent or restructure intellectual traditions. For example, in his brilliant attempt to restore the respectability of monism, Jonathan Schaffer creates an “intellectual pedigree tracing from Parmenides, Plato, and Plotinus, to Spinoza, Hegel, and Bradley.” This tradition is to be contrasted with the sinners:

   “It will prove useful to begin with Russell’s claim that pluralism is favored by common sense since this claim is the source of the contemporary dismissal of monism as being obviously false. So Russell (1985, 36) declares: “I share the common-sense belief that there are many separate things; I do not regard the apparent multiplicity of the world as consisting merely in phases and unreal divisions of a single indivisible Reality.” Russell (1985, 48) then frames the debate as a debate between the commonsensical empiricist pluralist who can see that “there are many things” and the wild-eyed rationalistic monist who would argue a priori that there is only one thing. Here is the birth story of analytic philosophy and what has sounded like the death knell for monism. But analytic philosophy—for all of its many virtues—was born in sin.” (Emphasis in original)

   Schaffer’s moralized pedigree is enlisted, in part, to reframe and, thus, undercut Russell’s moralized conceptual framing of an opposition between the common sense of (empiricist) pluralism and the dreams of wild-eyed rationalistic monism.

   In fact, Russell is a master of philosophic prophecy. In addition to Schaffer’s example, it is worth calling attention to an implicit example of something like the dialectic between true and false philosophy in Russell’s writings: sometimes the opposed view is systematically unnamed or even effaced. For example, in “On Scientific Method In Philosophy,” Russell does not name “Hegel's modern disciples” (note the implied magisterial relationship) in the main body of the text; when Russell does quote one of them, "Reality is not merely one and self-consistent, but is a system of reciprocally determinate parts," the author’s name (Bosanquet) only appears in a footnote. One of the main targets, Bradley, never gets mentioned. (For more on the significance of this text, see here, here, here, here.)

8. The nub of “philosophic prophecy” is that our present or even our future once-unforeseen actions can be the intended outcome of past design. So, while the content of philosophic prophecy can be rich in detail it need not anticipate the exact variety of ways in which history unfolds. Rather, what philosophic prophecy entails is a kind of shared horizon between the prophecy and the often implied prophesied future. To put this in slightly less poetic terms: the way some problems or issues within (and outside) philosophy are conceived today may be indebted to how issues were framed in some philosophic prophecy. So, this fully allows all manner of contingency because the author of such a prophecy need not anticipate in what technological manner issues are debated, or who is included in the debate (and in which language), etc.
9. Philosophic prophecy works often by introducing a set of conceptual oppositions that help delimit how philosophic problems/controversies/questions are treated subsequently. I have in mind something akin to a Kuhnian paradigm. For example, Hobbes’ fiction of a “state of nature” has shaped the subsequent tradition even in works that aim to refute or get around it.
10. The present list of characteristics (1-10) is meant in the spirit of an ideal type. That is, this list of characteristics is not offered in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. The concept, philosophic prophecy, is, in the first instance, developed to facilitate descriptive analysis and classification within philosophic history of a wide range of otherwise very different philosophers operating within very different milieus. Yet, second, by organizing our source material in light of a concept such as philosophic prophecy we nay also alter philosophy’s possible meaning(s). But, third, philosophic prophecy is also a tool that can be promoted by philosophic historians. To be precise: we should keep imagining practices of the history of philosophy that keep history of philosophy within philosophy.

Within my philosophic tradition, Plato’s dialogues are probably the origin of the genre of philosophic prophecies: Socrates is contrasted with false authorities (the best of which are Sophists), and Plato’s characters use narratives that are full of claims that are not know-ably false and which enhance philosophic doctrine. Nevertheless, it is worth emphasizing that philosophic prophecy is not the activity of offering noble lies (which engage in know-ably false claims). I also mean to distinguish the application of this concept from the practice promoted by some of Leo Strauss’ followers of locating unstated esoteric doctrines in a text. While it is, of course, not impossible that some esoteric doctrines are conveyed by means of philosophic prophecy, this need not be the case. In philosophic prophecy the exoteric text is doing the work of shaping the thought of future generations.

This last point is why the method of coining concepts that I advocate is entirely compatible with ongoing scholarly investigations into the varied manner and impacts of attempted philosophic prophecies engage with the details of texts and their functions, including in varying contexts. So, while here I have focused on the way a particular concept functions in texts and their effects, this is not meant to rule out the significance of many contextual and material conditions. On the contrary, my focus on authority above is meant to open the door to investigations of non-textual practices that are significant in philosophic history.

Moreover, not all philosophic prophecies need to have been successful up until now to be worthy of our consideration. In particular, sometimes our present focus on a previously ignored or hidden prophecy may be just the condition to generate a new, shared intellectual horizon. This is why orphaned concepts are crucial to serious study of the history of philosophy.