FT: How would you describe your personal philosophy?Hmmm. The "mattering map" sounds like a cute idea but maybe I'd need to read Goldstein's novel and some Rorty to really understand what Ophelia is talking about. I mean, doesn't everything matter? At least in some way or other.
OB: I’m not sure I really have anything as grand as a personal philosophy – I think I have more of a methodology. It could be boiled down to not wanting to be taken for a sucker, or in more philosophical language, to a dislike of bullshit. I hate dishonest manipulative language of all sorts, and I spend a lot of time sniffing it out and then making fun of it.
But on the affirmative side, I am in favour or a lot of things, if that adds up to a philosophy. It might be more what the philosopher Rebecca Goldstein in her novel The Mind-body Problem called a mattering map. Freedom and autonomy matter to me, as do rights. So do poetry, music, starry nights. Like Richard Rorty trying to unite Trotsky and wild orchids, I’m not sure how to connect the two – so I just put them on the mattering map.
If you don't have a personal philosophy, how can you make judgements about what should and shouldn't be on your mattering map? And if you do decide something belongs on the map (such as Trotsky or wild orchids), how do you decide what size to make it and where to position it in relation to everything else?
I know I sometimes take things too seriously - Ophelia's metaphor for instance - but it seems to me that everyone has a personal philosophy, at least in so far as the phrase is commonly understood. I appreciate most people don't spend much time thinking about such things but Ophelia is associate editor of The Philosophers’ Magazine, so I imagine she's given the subject more than a passing thought.
Still, like I said, I probably need to read Goldstein and Rorty to get a better idea of Ophelia's thinking. I just wish she'd been a bit more explicit.
[Via Faith in Honest Doubt]
