Life without Theory: Biography as an Exemplar of Philosophical Understanding

Abstract

This article discusses recent attempts to provide the genre of biography with a philosophical, theoretical foundation and attempts to show that such efforts are fundamentally misguided. Biography is, I argue, a profoundly nontheoretical activity, and this, precisely, makes it philosophically interesting. Instead of looking to philosophy to provide a theory of biography, we should, I maintain, look to biography to provide a crucially important example and model of what Ludwig Wittgenstein called “the kind of understanding that consists in seeing connections.” This kind of understanding stands in sharp contrast to the theoretical understanding provided by science and is, Wittgenstein maintained, what we as philosophers are, or should be, striving for.

Sorunsalları, Tarihsel Gelişimi ve Temsilcileri Bağlamında Biyografi Teorisine Genel Bir Bakış

“…İnsanları büyük yapan eylemleri olduğuna göre biyografide karakterden çok eylemlere odaklanmak gerekir. Lee, biyografide açıksözlülüğün de önemini vurgular ve biyografın "sahte ahlâkçılık" tuzağına düşmemesi gerektiğini belirterek Dr. Johnson'a benzer bir tutum benimser (Lee, 1911: 7-8;Caine, 2019: 66-70;Monk, 2007).…”

Telling stories, screening lives: notes towards an anthropological biography

“…In her eyes, the latter implied a kind of truth incompatible with the ‘truth of real life’ (: 99), though as contemporary Wittgenstein biographer, Monk, has suggested, this is a false opposition. It follows from Woolf’s conception of fiction as the only way to move beyond documentation of the external world to access ‘life’ (: 541). In revisiting early models of biography represented by Boswell and Johnson, Monk argues for the creative fusion of ‘granite’ and ‘rainbow’ through the articulation of an interpretive stance by the author with respect to their subject – one predicated on a particular kind of hermeneutic.…”

“…In revisiting early models of biography represented by Boswell and Johnson, Monk argues for the creative fusion of ‘granite’ and ‘rainbow’ through the articulation of an interpretive stance by the author with respect to their subject – one predicated on a particular kind of hermeneutic. For Monk, what Wittgenstein called ‘the kind of understanding that consists in seeing connections’ offers a framework for grasping the peculiar nature of the biographical task (: 567). Approached as a practice of description, rather than explanation, the biographer seeks not to argue but to persuade a reader to see a subject in a particular way.…”

Walking the Line between Anga Fakatonga and Anga Fakapalangi

“…I have found reference to two especially useful articles in Ray Monk's work, both titled 'The Ethics of Biography' which, ironically, take opposite views on the matter. 40 Margaret Oliphant argues that a biographer 'has a greater obligation to [preserve] the good reputation of his or her subject than to the truth', 41 whereas Edmund Gosse argues that the responsibility of the biographer is 'to be as indiscreet as possible.' 42 This tension…”