Ringo and the Philosophers
Ringo and the Philosophers
I was watching a TV special featuring Ringo Starr. He sang and played the drums a bit. It was quite nice in a low-key kind of way. My constant thought was: why is Ringo so limited? He’s a good drummer, but why is his technique so primitive (I’ve never heard him play a drumroll). All these years as a professional drummer and he hasn’t learned better technique! Then there is his singing: he’s a barely competent singer, with a limited vocal range—why not take some singing lessons and improve his voice? And why hasn’t he put some effort into learning to play guitar or piano or harmonica? He hasn’t really learned anything new in the last fifty years. What does he do with his time? He has written a few decent songs, but not many—why? Then there is his old bandmate, Paul M.: that lad has some musical ability, but he can’t read music. What? It’s not that hard: read a book on it or pay someone to teach you. Yet Paul just hasn’t got round to it. I’m sure it’s not beyond him.
I feel the same way about athletes. Lebron James is a great basketball player, but what other sports does he play? He obviously likes sports, so why not learn some other sports? I don’t think it’s lack of time; you won’t find him taking up tennis when he retires. I could thrash him at tennis and table tennis! Tennis players seldom play other sports (bit of golf maybe). Why the limitation? Why not extend your athletic ability into other domains? Wouldn’t Roger Federer enjoy taking up some new sports just for the fun of it—surfing, skateboarding, archery? It never seems to happen.
With philosophers it’s the same story: they stick to what they know. They are specialists. But if you like philosophy, why not branch out a bit? If you are good at it in one domain, you would surely be good in other domains. Why, indeed, are you not interested in the whole subject? These are high IQ people with big egos—why not have a go at something different? Even Bertrand Russell had a limited range of philosophical interests (no ethics or aesthetics or phenomenology or philosophy of biology). Wouldn’t it be interesting to see more from the Ringo Starrs of the philosophical world? Are people just afraid to branch out?
I am the opposite. I am a skilled drummer who learned to sing and play guitar (also harmonica). I write songs (I have about 80). I was a gymnast and pole vaulter, but I learned many other sports—I’m still learning new ones. I like playing sports, so I want to add new ones to my repertoire. But this is especially true in philosophy: I like to cover every part of the subject. I’m interested in philosophical questions, so I think about nearly all of them. It’s strange to me that others don’t feel this way: aren’t they even interested in the problems of philosophy they don’t specialize in? I suppose I can see why someone who specializes in practical ethics might not be very interested in logic or metaphysics, but how can you be interested in metaphysics and not be interested in logic and epistemology? Is it just the pressure of academic institutions that forces people into pigeonholes? What is the psychology of this? It’s as if everyone in philosophy is like Ringo Starr.
My understanding is that someone like Aristotle not only was a polymath but fashioned a universal system about everything. His form/matter distinction and four causes was a master concept widely if not universally applicable. If Aristotle were alive today, preumably he’d study everything or many things; there might be widely learned people but there are no Renaissance Men and some people prefer to master a certain territory over curiosity about many things. Perhaps philosophers who limit themselves have a high need for cognitioin but not a high openness to experience.
I think it’s mainly insecurity and the low premium professionally placed on wide interests.
I would imagine it’s hard for a skateboarding, knife throwing philosopher pensioner to see the other extreme, but to refer to another one of your interests – I feel this could be evolutionary in nature. I can see it being useful to have both types – niche within niche types vs those with broader interests.
Also it comes down to what interests people, I have zero interest in rap and hip hop so I don’t write them. I have a huge interest in consciousness, but not remotely interested in ethics. I’m not so keen on sport, team competitions perhaps, walking A to B or enjoying the countryside perhaps, not Munro bagging or exercise for the sake of it. Each to their own.
Also -I prefer to discover rather than learn, I’m not anti learning, I’ll do it if I really need to, but it’s just more fun for me to experiment and discover. I like to find my own way of thinking about things rather than be told, it has its major disadvantages, but it allows me to understand deeper than just reading it and copying what everyone else does.
I have been learning more about electronics recently, but I just need to know enough to do what I want to do, then I experiment with breadboards. I don’t want to spend 5 years learning something inside out (maths and all), just enough to do what I want with it. This is my nature.
In defence of Macca, apart from the fact he’s never needed to learn music – it’s a completely different thing to playing by ear. How many naturally gifted golfers go through the doldrums when they start fannying about with golf swing.
In defence of Ringo – can you play the drums backwards?
I wonder if Ringo has ever really practiced his drumroll. I assume you mean play with the right hand on the snare and left on the hi hat–I can’t do it at all well.
I’d forgotten Ringo does that. I was thinking more of the 2nd verse of strawberry fields forever.
Though it wasn’t really a drumming compliment – I do really like his drums on that song.
Don’t get me wrong, Ringo is an excellent drummer–great taste and rhythm. But he doesn’t have much technique compared to other drummers.
Ringo is left handed playing a right handed kit, if he had got into proper technique or tried to learn different styles that might have been drummed out of him (so to speak).
Correct, but that in practice comes down to what I said about the snare and the hi hat; the rest is the same as a right-hander.
He apparently leads his fills with his left hand on the right handed kit which must have some effect.
I don’t think it can have a noticeable effect. I can do it both ways.
I actually doubt very much that Paul doesn’t know the basics of musical notation. And surely he knows music theory to some extent.
I doubt it too, but I don’t think we should underestimate a well trained ear and an experienced music brain for getting by without notation.
This reminds me of a quote from the philosopher Barry Stroud that i keep at hand:
«Philosophy is one subject and . . . progress in one place depends on the resolution of issues that lie elsewhere. One is led eventually into almost all other areas and questions. This is certainly true of the work of the great philosophers of the past. Against that high standard, the current professional fixation on distinct “fields” or areas of academic “specialization” and “competence” looks like no more than a bad joke».
Is there something about the philosophical domain (in contrast to the scientific, say) that requires synthesis, and continual efforts towards a synoptic perspective…not just for creating the grand metaphysical systems of an Hegel, Schopenhauer or Whitehead (whatever their merit is)…but also for disclosing or revealing, for example, similar structures embodied in very different philosophical problems…one example of this is in your «Problems in philosophy» where you bring out into the open the DIME – pattern embodied in, and across, a lot (all?) of different philosophical topics and problems…?…without deep knowledge about a lot of different philosophical topics would one be able to discern such a pattern?..i dont think so…
Another example where resources from one philosophical topic is useful or necessary inside a completely different philosophical topic is maybe the article «Naive realism, seeing stars, and perceiving the past» by Alex Moran..where he uses the eternalist position (from the philosophy of space and time) for defending naive realism from the time lag argument (which of course belongs to the very different philosophical topic that is the metaphysics of perception) if i dont remember incorrectly:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/papq.12238
These are good points. I like the quote from Stroud (an old friend of mine–Canadian, of course). It has almost become a virtue in American philosophy not to know much about other fields of philosophy.