A Look Into the Philosophy of William Hare - Making Connections (2011)

I have inquired into the work of William Hare this week, and I must say that his writing is consistent with Dewey, both in syntactical and in philosophical senses. Most of my philosophical study has been through the medium of translation, whether it be from German or French or Greek text. To read work originally written in my native language is both an ease on my mind and a comfort that proper meaning has been conveyed.

A summary of the points made by Hare in Helping Open-mindedness Flourish

1.     Open-mindedness will always exist where the desire for knowledge is genuine.

2.     Open-mindedness involves the concern for truth. However there is an obvious difference between a genuine interest in what is true, and a genuine interest in what you believe to be true.

3.     To believe something is true is not inconsistent with the genuine desire for knowledge, however these believe must always come accompanied with a certain consideration of vulnerability.

4.     This vulnerable, fallibilist view must not reach into the extreme of cynicism, for this transforms open-mindedness into no virtue at all. 

5.     All ideas must be given their proper consideration, but we must be mindful not to reach a sort of gullibility in which even the most ridiculous of ideas is taken seriously. Such gullibility undermines our task for truth.

6.     We must give suitable consideration to our inevitable biases, while remaining mindful that the over-consideration of bias results in the pessimistic realization of the inability to avoid it, and thus diminishes our resolve for open-mindedness.

7.     We must bear in mind the distinction between intending to proceed in an open-minded manner, and actually succeeding at this (Scarree 464) Such a task requires the employment of courage, intellectual humility, and intellectual honesty.

8.     Be wary of the popular yet diminishing opinion of open-mindedness as a kind of tolerant indifference in the face of disagreement (Hare 15)

9.     Wisely judge the usefulness of further consideration and reflection with the virtue to live with uncertainty without being paralyzed by hesitation (Russell 221)

10. A seeming paradox arises when we realize that in order to purport a minority opinion we must retain a sort of dogmatic resolve. However we may replace this taboo of dogmatism with tenaciousness, which describes a sort of stubbornness that does not imply closed-mindedness as well.

Some of Hare’s work seems to be a reiteration of Dewey. But I find content in this reiteration. It seems as though our society holds a prevalent view of political correctness, and, being a contemporary publishing scholar, Hare must obviously abide by this political correctness in order to gain ethos among our society. Certain people have pointed out the possible racial subscriptions of Dewey that undermine his philosophy. I believe that Hare’s viewpoints counter-argue these theories, whether they are right or wrong. The fact that Hare, a contemporary philosopher burdened by the sometimes unfathomable requirement for political correctness (which I often view as an absurd request to purport ourselves beyond the ability of our own humanity) has delved into the concept of open-mindedness and argues points similar if not identical to Dewey, affirms that the philosophical ideas themselves stand as pragmatic and useful regardless of whatever suppositions of bigotry or misconstrued prose reveal themselves within the works of Dewey.

Indeed the very philosophy of open-mindedness itself creates a strong argument against any sort of intolerance or racism, and admits its possibility for fallaciousness as well! Had we the opportunity to discuss with Dewey these claims of ethnocentric behavior, or if we even had the tenacity to make these claims of Hare, what could they say besides “I shall consider your opinions actively and with the utmost respect.” And if Dewey were to be challenged with these theories through the scope of contemporary culture, what could he say but “upon consideration I have deemed these claims of savagery and similar descriptions to be unmindful and unreasonably insensitive to the viewpoints of these cultures.” How insensitive are we, when we challenge this philosophy and make claims of ethnocentrisms, when we discover that the man we are challenging is dead and cannot defend or revise his claims in response? And when we make these claims, we are constantly presented with Dewey’s detailed and fruitful descriptions of open-mindedness, active consideration, etc… To claim Dewey is ethnocentric is to ignore the very philosophy he has created.

Scarre, G. (2005). Excusing the inexcusable? Moral responsibility and ideologically motivated wrongdoing. Journal of Social Philosophy, 36(4), 464

Hare, William. (2011). Helping Open-mindedness Flourish. Journal of Thought, Vol. 46, ½, (pp. 9-20)

Russell, B. (1997). Philosophy. In J. Slater (Ed.), Collected papers of Bertrand Russell, Vol. 11 (pp.221). London, UK. Routledge.