The Guardian Education, Jonathan Wolff, March 15, 2016
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We need a new model of academic progression that does not involve working evenings and weekends
Agreed. The terms, which I have used previously online, 'Get a life', arrive to mind in regard to certain academics, including philosophers.
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St Augustine (“grant me chastity, but not yet”) fathered an illegitimate child, but then became a celibate priest. Aquinas and the philosophers of the middle ages were all churchmen.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, virtually all of the canonical figures were domestically unconventional. Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant and Bentham all went unmarried. Bishop Berkeley married late but had no children. Jean-Jacques Rousseau eventually married his lover Thérèse Levasseur, but abandoned all of his five children to foundling homes. This did not stop him writing a treatise, Emile, on the proper upbringing of children.
Closer to our own time, John Stuart Mill married late in life and had no children of his own. Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre and Wittgenstein were all unmarried and childless. Marx gave up philosophy, turning to economics and politics, when his children were still young.
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What explains this extraordinary correlation? It could be pure coincidence, but other hypotheses press for consideration. One is that the sheer oddity of philosophers makes them unsuitable life partners. Another is that domestic bliss dulls the philosophical edge. A third is that the problem lies in the nature of the deepest, most fundamental, philosophical work. If genius is “the infinite capacity for taking pains”, it wouldn’t seem to leave much time for anything else.
Hmm, I am not a betting man, but I like the odds than some women and some people have considered me odd. However, considering the theological and philosophical abilities of most in western society...
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And a start would be to make advancement dependent on what academics do during normal working hours, rather than in their evenings and weekends.
Good advice. Besides, I need to make time to watch football and socialize at church.
Psych Central Bella De Paulo
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Consider, first, many of the most celebrated male philosophers. Do you know what they have in common? Plato Augustine Aquinas Hobbes Locke Hume Adam Smith Descartes Spinoza Leibniz Kant Bentham Schopenhauer Kierkegaard Nietzche Sartre Wittgenstein
If you guessed that they are were all lifelong single people, you are correct! Most of them also had no children.
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First, who says philosophers “make unsuitable life partners” just because they stayed single? Maybe they would have done just fine as life partners if that’s what they wanted, but it wasn’t. Maybe they chose to live single.
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Maybe free thinkers are unlikely to be attracted to conventional marriage or family life.
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These philosophers are, by some criteria, extraordinary people. Maybe they were uninterested in living ordinary lives.
The quote unlikely to be attracted to conventional is significant. I reason that many free thinkers and philosophers desire marriage and family, but a cookie-cutter approach might not fit.
There are serious issues of finding someone where there is a deep connection, in order to pursue a potential romantic relationship. If he/she had spent many years on academic study, the age related pool has decreased significantly. If he/she still desires his/her own biological family, the numbers have significantly decreased.
For this type of philosopher and academic, it is primarily about finding the right match and secondarily about finding the right social match. Frankly, in western society, I deduce often these priorities are reversed.
