Gary H Merrill

False Wisdom Gary H Merrill

What is pseudo-philosophy? What threats does it pose to us? How do Nursing Theory, NEXIVM and Keith Raniere, and Ayn Rand and Objectivism exhibit features of pseudo-philosophy and false wisdom? How can we come to recognize pseudo-philosophy easily, and to defeat it?

For over 2,000 years philosophers have complained about pseudo-philosophy and pseudo-philosophers. In three of his dialogs and his largest work, The Republic, Plato complains about the Sophists and the poets serving up misleading, inconsistent, and fake philosophy to their followers and students. Xenophon, another student of Socrates, complains in his book On Hunting about the deception, dishonesty, and self-promotion of the rhetoricians and Sophists.

In the 19th century, Arthur Schopenhauer attacked Hegel, Schelling, and Fichte as being pseudo-philosophers for using twisted arguments to mislead their students and readers. Throughout the 20th century and continuing on through the present, Ayn Rand has been accused repeatedly of creating misleading, and even dangerous, pseudo-philosophy. And in 1992 a group of 18 well-known academic philosophers wrote an open letter to The Times of London in an attempt to discourage Cambridge University from awarding French philosopher Jacques Derrida an honorary degree in philosophy because his work failed to meet the standards of genuine philosophy and consisted of "tricks and gimmicks". More generally, the school of Postmodernism has been widely attacked as being pseudo-philosophical and devoid of sense.

False Wisdom provides a clear and useful account of the puzzling notion of pseudo-philosophy that will be understood by readers having little or no formal background in philosophy, but which will also be of interest to academics and students of philosophy for the comprehensive, innovative, and practical approach it takes to the subject and to the application of that approach to pseudo-philosophy in real-world cases. It also exposes aspects and details of philosophical methodology in a way accessible to both the average reader and those with advanced interests in philosophy and its methods.