I highly suggest watching the interview before reading this. It has a part one and part two, and adds up to about ten minutes. But believe me, it goes by very quickly. Watch it, then come back here.
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson is the only show I purposely watch. I think of Craig as a hilarious, but excellent example of a good human being. I wish I was like him – populist, yet intellectual; smart, but not necessarily in the academic sense. In other words, I respect and wish to emulate this man.
Now, having said that he is not necessarily academically advanced, Craig has a reputation as the most intellectual late-night talk show host (not a high honor). He constantly jokes about Kierkegaard and Kant (known to Craig’s fans as “Kan’t”), drops allusions to literary characters on a largely unaware audience, and often has surprisingly un-famous guests to talk about intellectual subjects, like he did here. As evidence, he draws attention to his interesting persona when he introduces this philosopher, and says to the audience, “You’re like, oh, moral particularism, puh! Leno did that last week.” Even within the interview, Craig drops a reference to Descartes. You don’t see Letterman throwing Descartes around.
So I have genuine academic respect for Craig. On Thursday night’s show, my ears and eyes were focused directly on the television when he introduced a philosopher from the University of Texas, Austin. This was particularly interesting to me, because I am currently in a philosophy class with an instructor who lives in Austin. Not that they are connected. They may never have met.
But this Mr. Jonathan Dancy, professor of moral philosophy in both Austin and England, came on the show and condescendingly destroyed Craig’s self-esteem.
That pissed me off.
Craig wanted Dancy to define his field, namely, moral particularism. Dancy basically failed, and has obviously never read the definition of definition. He beat around an astoundingly small bush, until Craig gave up trying to drag a concise definition out of him. All during the interview, Dancy denied Craig’s definitions or examples, spoke with ridiculously condescending phrases, and chuckled like the elitist bastard he is. You could see Dancy had no respect for Craig.
And that’s what I hate about philosophers.
My class in philosophy has been a remarkably enjoyable experience, because it seems my instructor works very hard to make sure no student feels dumb. And it works. But…
I hesitate to generalize, but at least I’m acknowledging that I am. Here it comes: Most philosophy majors I’ve met have been, on the whole, condescending. Markedly self-centered. Insensitive. Fully lacking in sympathy and empathy.
Craig invited the philosopher on his show to learn something, to help an audience come to a better understanding of philosophy. Dancy blocked Craig’s shot, and further, insulted his host. He has only helped me to cement my preconceived, probably false, feelings toward philosophers.
But Craig’s question, referenced in the title of this blog, wondering whether one can simply be a philosopher by self-proclamation, is an important one. I don’t think anyone can nowadays, but certainly the first philosophers didn’t have any tests to take. So I suppose what I’m saying is, anyone certainly CAN be a philosopher, and should not let Dancy’s annoying demeanor scare them off from thinking about things. It’s important to wonder why you’re here. If you never wonder why, you’ll never decide why.
Craig’s statement toward the end, “You’re overthinking this, man,” was astoundingly appropriate. Sometimes I think that coming up with terms like “moral particularism,” and taking four minutes to define it as, “It’s all subject to context,” these methods might not prompt people to think as much as these poor souls expect. Philosophers often come up with terms, write papers, philosophize themselves to anorexia…but what are they really accomplishing? In the time it took them to write a paper, a plumber just fixed someone’s toilet. Feces is washing away because of their hard work, while in the philosopher’s case, feces is simply building up.
So. Are philosophers overthinking it? Please comment. I want to know what you think.
Stephanized! 
This little conversation, and viewing of Craig Ferguson’s show has been making me think…we each have our own particular view of the world…different family circle, circumstances, social experience, religion, town, country and events that shape us. We all can’t see things the same. But, I thought the professor was trying to explain that Most of Us try to do our best in our lives and in muddling through when there is conflict within us or with in the circumstances we face. I thought it was interesting that the professor was on explaining something deep. That is hard to define. And I agree with you, that the prof seemed to dodge the simple explanation. But when I had my sons watch the interview, and I saw it again, I understood that the prof was giving examples of particularism; and he picked absolute rules that we believe, but then proved they were false…
“One should always help others, or one should always tell the truth.”
He proved it was not absolutely true that one should help every one, because it would be wrong to help a bank robber rob a bank, or always tell the truth and tell someone(they are fat,thin,beautiful, ugly,brilliant or stupid if it will make that particular situation worse….I can’t remember the specific example Dancy gave, but I thought he did explain it well.
It has had me looking at the efforts of those around me and how many people do try their best. It is amazing. With an eye for the good, and trying to be grateful, even for opposition, I learn to root for both teams. for no one to get hurt. For the newspaper writers, for the musicians, for the kids that sing in a choir and those that don’t want to. For the philosophers that read and the ones that don’t. I have been known to cuss, but try to avoid it because I can get fired for saying one word that is ‘blue.’ I think Craig Ferguson is hilarious,and I am bummed that I have missed so many funny people and their lives that march on without intersecting mine. But I am delighted to catch your bright comments, Ferguson’s, and know because many millions of people have worked together and separately to invent our common language,societies where new and old people come together to talk and listen, invent the computer, the university, invent many nations of people that work in peace for most of the time, and for those that help us solve problems when we can’t live in peace. I am glad you exist and Craig F. does. And I would love to know what Descarte thought and how he came up with the Cartesian plane (the numbered graph used in geometry:) He studied. As we are. Have a great one day and so on.
Aren’t we all philosophers of our own lives? I feel like some of these big time philosophy guys are just guys who can’t think for themselves and need to bounce off of other people’s ideas about how they viewed the world hundreds of years ago. The problem is that the world is different for all of us. And I have no idea where their elitism comes from! And really not all philosophers are as bad as this guy. I took philosophy at Baylor and although my teacher was a bit of a feminist she was one of my favorite teachers! Case and point, I actually do believe philosopher’s are waaaaay overthinking it. I mean I guess these are all important questions we need to ask about ourselves, but the answer will never be the same for everyone. At the very least I feel like studying other philosophers and going to “arguing conferences” is a pretty colossal waste of time 😀 we could probably watch paint dry on a wall together, and come up with something that makes more sense to us than anything they have to say. Of course I believe pretty hardcore in the power of science, so maybe I am a little biased