Perspectives, Pluralism, Showing and Saying

Kevin Kennedy

Published online: 17 September 2011

� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract This paper reflects on a number of metaphysi-

cal and epistemological aspects of theatrical performance

and the theatrical aspects of some philosophical writing. It

tries to demonstrate that both philosophy and theater say

and show philosophical truths while also giving some

evidence for the truth of a pluralist view.

Keywords Pluralism � Plato � Wittgenstein �Paul Weiss � Crispin Wright

‘‘From a philosophy professor’s perspective, theater is

fascinating. Every show is a clashing of different charac-

ters’ perspectives—and that’s exactly what philosophy is.’’

This is the spontaneous reply I gave when asked by the

student newspaper at my university why a philosophy

professor would be so involved with theater in New York

City. (As the managing director of an Off Broadway not-

for-profit theater company, I am also a producer.) The idea

that a play presents a clash of perspectives and that phi-

losophy does as well is only one of a number of things that

make actual work in the theater interesting from the phi-

losopher’s point of view. My reflections here will not be

informed by a study of aesthetics or the philosophy of art

but by themes in the fields of metaphysics and epistemol-

ogy. In particular, I find that there are ideas expressed by

thinkers as diverse as Plato, Wittgenstein, Paul Weiss and

Crispin Wright which resonate with my experience of

producing theater, namely, Wittgenstein’s distinction in the

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus between showing and

saying, Plato’s use of the dramatic form of the dialogue and

of allegories and images, and the metaphysical pluralisms

of Weiss and Wright. I will not be reflecting on these ideas

as a creative artist but as a producer and use as examples

plays which I have produced.1 I want to reflect on the

similarities and differences between what happens in a

theatrical performance and in philosophical reflection.

The claim that a play represents the clash of the different

characters’ perspectives can be seen in the conflicts that

move a drama (and even a comedy) forward. This usually

has to do with the radically different goals, expectations

and values of the different characters. For example, in

Eugene O’Neill’s All God’s Chillun Got Wings, a white

woman and a black man fall in love and marry in New

York City at the turn of the last century. The racism of the

world around them, and their differing perceptions of it,

propel the tragedy forward and ultimately drive the woman

mad. The same is true on the other side of the spectrum,

even in a comedy, like Allen Boretz and John Murray’s

Room Service. There, an unscrupulous theatrical producer

struggles to raise money for his next show, staying one step

ahead of the hotel manager who wants to have him and his

cast arrested for their unpaid bills. In a comedy or drama,

there wouldn’t be much happening if the various characters

were all agreed on what ought to be done, and how and by

whom. Consequently, there is a disagreement about what is

the case, what is true, what is right. This disagreement can

be ethical or even metaphysical. In John O’Hara’s Vero-

nique, a character whose sister has been murdered dis-

cusses the importance of forgiveness with her sister’s

K. Kennedy (&)

Department of Philosophy, St. John’s University,

Queens, NY 11439, USA

e-mail: kennedyk@stjohns.edu

1 The mission of the theater company is the revival of American

comedies, dramas and musicals which have not been performed in

New York for many years, if not decades. Consequently, some are

obscure. The mission statement, production history, etc. can be seen

at: www.thepeccadillo.com.

123

Topoi (2011) 30:103–111

DOI 10.1007/s11245-011-9098-3

murderer, highlighting questions about the need for faith

and the existence of God. Sometimes the disagreement has

epistemological roots; what one character can see and

understand, another cannot, or what one considers evidence

for some truth, the other does not. In Sidney Howard’s

The Silver Cord an overly possessive mother’s ‘‘love’’ is

destroying her son until his new wife is able to see the

situation clearly and save him.

Clearly, the various characters of a play see the world,

or at least the situation, very differently. Add to this

another important point about theater and reality: a good

play is one in which the various characters are recogniz-

able, regardless of whether they are admirable or even

likable. What’s needed in order to bring the audience into

the action of the play is that they can find themselves in

it—not necessarily as one particular character but perhaps

as one character at one point and another later. In essence,

the audience member has to say, ‘‘That’s just what I would

have said!’’ ‘‘Aha, I see what they’re after’’ or ‘‘Be careful;

he’s not telling the truth.’’ They have to be able to imagine

themselves, in some way, in the reality of the play. Con-

sequently, for the play to succeed it has to represent reality.

It has to represent the reality of human life, perhaps not for

us personally but a reality we can imagine. The personal-

ities and motivations have to be recognizable. Even if it is

farcical or fantastic, it has to represent some kind of

familiar reality, particularly through its characters. Inter-

estingly, even when it is as slight an entertainment as the

comedy Room Service, it entertains by drawing the audi-

ence in. If the audience really believes the characters as

they engage in the most unbelievable antics, they are

delighted. For instance, in Room Service, the actors need to

‘skip’ or escape from the hotel without paying their bill.

Since they can’t be seen leaving with their luggage, the

only way to save their clothes is to leave wearing all of

them. The result is hilarious. And reality plays another role

in comedy. To play a comedy for laughs often kills it; to

play a comedy ‘‘for real’’ makes the comedy come alive. In

other words, the actors cannot be constantly winking at the

audience to indicate that they get the joke as well. The joke

doesn’t land nearly as well as when the actors remain

firmly in their character, a character who may not be at all

amused.

Theater, then, can be seen as a conflict of perspectives,

perspectives on reality which can be interpreted philo-

sophically. Philosophy also involves in some crucial or

essential way a conflict of perspectives. I am not referring

only to the fact of philosophical controversy, though this is

an important fact. Rather, I am thinking of the metaphys-

ical theory about reality and our knowledge of it called

‘‘pluralism.’’ What is of interest to the philosopher

according to this interpretation of theater is what it may say

about reality. Perhaps reality is in some ways best

represented by a series of contrasting perspectives. I have

defended this view of reality elsewhere as ‘‘dialectical

pluralism.’’ I will return to this later. First, I would like to

make a few other observations about the similarities and

differences between philosophy and theater and, in par-

ticular, use some examples from the philosophies of Plato

and Wittgenstein to elucidate them.

There is a basic difference between philosophy and

theater. Philosophy employs arguments to provide answers

to our most basic questions. And unlike more specific

disciplines like mathematics, biology, finance or account-

ing, philosophy seeks answers to the ‘‘big questions.’’ What

is the nature of reality? What is mankind’s place within it?

What constitutes knowledge? What is the difference

between right and wrong? Is there a God? Obviously, if

I characterize philosophy in this manner, I think that these

are legitimate questions which can be answered. Or, if they

cannot be answered definitively and for all time, at least the

exploration of these questions and the attempt to answer

them is what constitutes philosophy.

Theater, on the other hand, is a presentation of human

life. If we ask what the purpose of this presentation is, we

may be tempted to say, ‘‘entertainment.’’ On Broadway, for

instance, the primary goal of commercial theater is to

entertain, sell tickets, and make a profit. However, even the

most commercially minded producer knows that there is an

appetite for more. The theater draws people because it does

more than simply entertain. There are tragedies and dramas

which are clearly meant to take on big issues, that raise

questions about good and evil, justice and injustice, race

and class (e.g., Lillian Hellman’s Another Part of the

Forest, John Colton’s The Shanghai Gesture, Elmer Rice’s

Counsellor-at-Law, Eugene O’Neill’s All God’s Chillun

Got Wings), the existence of God and forgiveness (e.g.,

John O’Hara’s Veronique), the nature of reality and

knowledge (e.g., O’Neill’s Strange Interlude, Philip Bar-

ry’s In A Garden), human motivation (e.g., Sidney How-

ard’s The Silver Cord, O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms,

Dorothy Parker & Arnaud d’Usseau’s, The Ladies of the

Corridor) and so on. In these plays, there is a presentation

of human life which draws the audience in through the

portrayal of characters whose situations, motivations and

actions play out a drama embodying these deep questions.

The play may present a point of view: the evil of racism,

the futility of revenge, the deep destructiveness of uncon-

scious motivations, and our inability to see the truth for

what it is. However, it is not a dramatic or theatrical pre-

sentation if a character simply stands on stage and articu-

lates the author’s point of view. This is considered the

mark of a poor play. Rather, the tragic consequences of

racism, revenge-seeking, ignorance on the part of the

characters of their own motivations and situation are pre-

sented or shown.

104 K. Kennedy

123

If philosophy is understood as a search for answers, i.e.,

explanations made by way of argument, and theater is

understood as a presentation, then an interesting way to

approach their similarities and differences might be by

reference to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s distinction between

saying and showing. In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophi-

cus, Wittgenstein makes clear that he thinks the traditional

problems of philosophy and their purported solutions are

all nonsense. This is because the attempt to state the

problems and to solve them are based upon a mistaken

understanding of the logic of our language. Regardless of

how one ultimately interprets the Tractatus, Wittgenstein is

saying that statements about empirical facts make sense

and can be true or false; statements of metaphysics, aes-

thetics and ethics, however, fail to state anything mean-

ingful. This is revealed to us when we investigate the logic

of our language. Having investigated, or ‘‘elucidated,’’ the

logic of our language, we must abandon the effort to solve

philosophical problems and pass over them in (perhaps

respectful) silence.

The concluding propositions of the Tractatus Logico-

Philosophicus go like this:

6.522 There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows

itself; it is the mystical.

6.53 The right method of philosophy would be this.

To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the

propositions of natural science, i.e. something that

has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always,

when someone else wished to say something meta-

physical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no

meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This

method would be unsatisfying to the other—he would

not have the feeling that we were teaching him phi-

losophy—but it would be the only strictly correct

method.

6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he

who understands me finally recognizes them as

senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on

them, over them (He must so to speak throw away the

ladder, after he has climbed up on it.).

He must surmount these propositions; then he sees

the world rightly.

7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be

silent (Wittgenstein 2003).

What Wittgenstein means by these last lines of the

Tractatus is controversial and I do not intend to offer an

interpretation of them here. Instead, I would like to use

them to prompt a discussion of the relationship of philos-

ophy and theater. I have defined philosophy here as the

attempt to reach answers to ultimate questions, so I

obviously don’t agree with Wittgenstein. But I do think

that what he has to say is instructive about the similarities

and differences between philosophy and theater (and,

perhaps, art in general but that’s a much larger topic).

What a theatrical performance does, primarily, is show

us something. This is because it is a performance. While it

may be insightful to note that a lecture is a ‘‘performance’’

as is perhaps even the writing of a book, the analogy only

goes so far. The professor is not portraying a character

when they lecture or write. The actor, on the other hand, is

portraying a character as laid down by the script. What the

characters say, while often in the form of factual state-

ments, is not factual. When one character says to another,

‘‘I smell fire’’ the audience does not evacuate the theater.

Even if the characters make philosophical statements they

cannot be taken simply on their face value. If the characters

comment on their situation or advance arguments for a

particular point of view, it is inescapable that they are still

characters in a play. The interpretation, the argument does

not stand alone but comes from an actor playing a char-

acter, on stage, wearing a costume and make-up, sur-

rounded by other actors playing characters with whom he

or she has interacted previously in the play. How the other

characters react to what is said becomes part of the total

meaning of what is said.

The actors also move about on the stage—they are

‘‘blocked,’’ i.e., their particular movements are scripted by

the actors themselves and the director in the process of

rehearsal (and sometimes by the author in the script). These

movements, whether someone is sitting or standing,

smoking a cigarette or having a drink, are all essential to

the meaning of what is presented or shown. The lines of

dialogue are not all there is to the dramatic presentation.

So what a theatrical performance does is show us

something through the totality of the words, actions, set-

tings, costumes, lighting, etc., which all make up the per-

formance. What is shown is a whole, a whole which is not,

at least by itself, explicitly stated. And in line with Witt-

genstein’s point: what the play shows it cannot say.

There is, however, a move, perhaps essential to the

cultural impact of the theatrical performance, which is the

attempt to try to step outside what is actually happening in

the drama and say what it as a whole means. This is what the

critic does. Not only does a critic evaluate a performance,

they also try to state what the play shows. I want to suggest

that we can use Wittgenstein’s distinction to critique the

practice of the critic, as it were: there is a sense in which it

seems to miss the point and fail to accomplish what it wants

to. It becomes mere commentary at a distance and removed

from the actual reality of the play. There is an analogy, I

believe, between theatrical performances on the one hand

and criticism on the other in line with what Wittgenstein is

saying about the proper use of language versus the

Perspectives, Pluralism, Showing and Saying 105

123

philosophical use. Language works when we use it in its

normal employment which is picturing states of affairs,

according to the Tractatus. However, when we do philos-

ophy, we try to step outside of the normal (indeed norma-

tive) employment of language and try to, as it were, catch

ourselves in the act of meaning something, knowing

something, being certain of something. We then try to use

language to describe what we have seen and ground it,

articulate it, clarify it. However, our language doesn’t really

work this way, so we always fail to say something mean-

ingful when we try to do philosophy. However, in the elu-

cidation of language, whether through the analysis of

logical form in the Tractatus or the exploration of language-

games in the Philosophical Investigations, we are able to

show but not say why philosophical reasoning must fail to

be meaningful. By analogy, one might say, that what

happens on stage can never be adequately articulated by the

critic and that criticism, however important, cannot replace

the live performance of theater nor even capture its real

essence. In a sense, the critic, by a certain necessity, always

fails to capture the reality of the play. What I am referring to

here, of course, is not the fact that a good play can get a bad

review and vice versa. Rather, what I am saying is that even

an insightful review, which for the sake of argument we’ll

say ‘‘gets it right’’ about the quality of the performance and

the intent of the author, etc., only offers a very limited take

on what happens in the actual performance. Reviews, of

course, are exceedingly important. It is not only that good

reviews sell tickets and bad reviews can cause shows to fail

(though not always). Rather, a review instructs audiences

how they are to take the play. When an audience comes to

see a play about which they have no prior knowledge, they

do not know how to take it. Is it supposed to be funny? Is it

serious or ironic? Reviews create expectations and give an

audience an interpretive structure. It is also notorious that

audiences for different performances vary greatly. There are

‘‘live’’ houses and ‘‘dead’’ ones. But, if the critical reaction

to a play is overwhelmingly positive, it is more likely that

the audience has come into the experience with a positive

attitude as a group. They are defined as people coming to ‘‘a

hit’’ and understand themselves as such and react as such.

While this is of interest to the producer and the actors, it

does not change the fact that the reviews stand outside the

reality of the play and cannot enter into it. They run

alongside, or, to put it negatively, they’re parasitic. A very

clever joke can found about this in Room Service. The

director, Binion, claims to have had a vision: ‘‘I caught a

glimpse of a new art form. A stage without actors … a

theater without an audience! Just scenery and critics!’’ At a

performance I produced, filled with critics, the house

exploded in laughter.

One might say that theater shows or presents life and

reality more movingly precisely because it is not stated but

made concrete, particular and acted out. What it presents is

not stated conceptually or with generality. However, we

have a drive to articulate and generalize. This is the

philosophical instinct. But philosophy loses something of

lived reality by its attempt to find a more universal truth.

On the other hand, theater can only find the universal in the

particularized moment, a moment which can only be

experienced but not stated. Wittgenstein would have us

abandon philosophy, or perhaps, like patients undergoing

Freudian analysis, be forever in therapy. My suggestion is

that just like the critic is necessary and yet parasitic on live

performance, so is Wittgensteinian therapy necessary and

parasitic on philosophy traditionally understood. We can’t

have Wittgenstein without philosophical problems and we

can’t have philosophy without Wittgensteinians (or skep-

tics generally). Or, to address it directly to this topic, one

might want to say that philosophy without theater and

theater without philosophy can’t exist, they each need their

foil. That is, properly understood, philosophy and theater

are essentially connected.

So while I do not agree with Wittgenstein that we need

to be cured of our philosophical instinct, I think he has a

point. Philosophy is perhaps the attempt to say what cannot

ever really be said, at least not completely and definitively

(though I would think that the fallibilism of Charles S.

Peirce or William James would be a better way to express

this). In the same way, the fact that criticism ‘‘fails’’

because it cannot replace or capture the reality of the

dramatic performance is no reason to abandon it but a

reminder to do it more carefully or with more humility.

What each form does and that form’s limitations, have to

be kept in mind.

An interesting question is: Can a practitioner of one

form succeed in doing what is proper or natural to the

other? For example, could a philosopher show what he

cannot state or could a play state a philosophical theory?

For one thing, a dramatic author who baldly states his point

of view by making a single character utter philosophical

propositions has failed, at least as a dramatist. Wittgenstein

would argue that even the philosopher who so states his

point of view has failed. The Tractatus is meant to show

what cannot be stated. Whether it succeeds is another

question. In this regard, the works of Plato are of great

interest here and indeed in any discussion of philosophy

and theater. Plato not only spends a great deal of time

attacking the ‘‘poets,’’ particularly in the Republic, but does

something else which is equally fascinating: he presents his

philosophy in dialogues or dramatic form and relies often

on the use of allegories, metaphors and myths. One won-

ders if Wittgenstein ever considered the dramatic, dialec-

tical form employed by Plato as an attempt to show what

cannot be said. Wittgenstein’s concerns are radically dif-

ferent than Plato’s, however. Wittgenstein thinks that

106 K. Kennedy

123

philosophical utterances must fail to be meaningful. Plato

is not asserting, as far as I know, that important philo-

sophical doctrines cannot be stated propositionally,

although it may be that that is why he prefers the dialectic

(and Aristotle does not). Plato is clearly competing with the

poets for cultural authority (most explicitly in Books III &

X of the Republic) but this need not be his only motivation

for employing a dialectical method in dialogue form. There

are some interesting examples of Plato’s use of dramatic

form, analogies and images which I would like to mention.

I think that the dramatic and dialectical revealing which

takes place in some Platonic dialogues parallels what can

be seen in theatrical performances. For example, in the

dialogue Euthyphro, Euthyphro has failed in his attempt to

define piety as what is ‘‘dear to the gods.’’ The discussion

then leads to the question of whether piety and justice are

the same. Euthyphro replies that piety is the part of justice

that has to do with the care of, or service to, the gods.

When he is asked by Socrates to explain what the care of

gods is, Euthyphro eventually says it is a knowledge of

how to sacrifice and pray. What value do our sacrifices and

prayers have for the gods, Socrates inquires? It is dear to

them, Euthyphro replies, bringing the argument full circle

yet again. It is at this point that Socrates says:

You could tell me in far fewer words, if you were

willing, the sum of what I asked, Euthyphro, but you

are not keen to teach me, that is clear. You were on

the point of doing so, but you turned away. If you had

given that answer, I should now have acquired from

you sufficient knowledge of the nature of piety (Eu-

thyphro, 14a-c, Grube 2000 translation).

In the surrounding passages, Socrates uses as examples

of service and care practices like dog-breeding and service

to masters where the service or care does some good, viz.,

the health of the dog or the accomplishment of the master’s

goal. The implication is that Socrates believes that ‘‘service

to the gods’’ should be understood as promoting the com-

mon good. ‘‘What good things do the gods accomplish by

using us as their servants?’’ Socrates asks. Clearly, Socrates

means to lead Euthyphro to the inference that the gods

would employ our service in bringing blessings to the city.

But these blessings would be those which result from the

justice of the rulers and citizens. Euthyphro of course

‘‘turns aside’’ because he cannot and will not follow where

the argument is leading, which is away from his own

conception of himself as pious, i.e., possessing a knowl-

edge of ritual (how to sacrifice and pray). Euthyphro

believes sacrifice and prayers are meant to gain ‘‘bless-

ings’’ for ourselves and our own, like wealth, power and

success, a kind of ‘‘bartering with gods’’ as Socrates puts it.

Here is an example of a philosophical point being made

dialectically and indeed dramatically. Socrates does not say

explicitly, ‘‘Piety and Justice are identical or co-exten-

sive.’’ Instead Plato reveals through the questioning of

Socrates and the character of Euthyphro two connected

notions: the deeply selfish motives hidden beneath a great

deal of what passes for religious piety and the somewhat

irreligious notion that the only true form of piety would be

a just life. Plato makes this same point explicitly in the

Apology, when Socrates describes his questioning of the

people of Athens as his divine mission and his service to

the god. The showing in the Euthyphro is in some ways

more persuasive and powerful than the statement of it in

the Apology. What does give the assertion great power in

the Apology is the dramatic scene: Socrates, an old man,

stands before a largely hostile audience, accused of impiety

and in danger of condemnation and death. What is his

crime? His philosophical activity. What is his defense? To

challenge the audience’s very notion of piety and to rede-

fine it as what he is doing and has done—thereby virtually

ensuring his condemnation and death. The dramatic coup

de theatre is when Socrates proposes as the counter-penalty

or alternative to the sentence of death honors awarded to

the Olympic victors.

In the Meno, we are presented with a character who

claims to be interested in philosophical discourse. Meno

wishes Socrates to answer the question, ‘‘Can virtue be

taught?’’ When Socrates claims to be ignorant even of the

nature of virtue itself, Meno claims to know the answer and

that it is easily stated. However, after being subjected to

Socrates’ questioning for a short time, he becomes unco-

operative and petulant. In a digression meant to serve as an

example of how to find a definition, Socrates offers a

definition of shape in terms of color: shape is always

accompanied by color. Meno objects to Socrates’ use of the

concept of color to define shape on the grounds that

someone might be unfamiliar with color. While Socrates

acknowledges that this is a reasonable objection, since

Meno is not color blind, his objection is obviously disin-

genuous. This is revealed dramatically when Socrates goes

on to define shape in geometrical terms Meno acknowl-

edges he does understand as ‘‘the limit of a solid.’’ Meno

replies, ‘‘But what is color?’’ What this exchange demon-

strates is the argumentative manner of the Sophists that

Meno admires. But rather than state what the character of

the Sophist is, Plato reveals it through Meno’s actions, as

he also does with the childish outbursts of Thrasymachus in

Book I of the Republic (‘‘Socrates, tell me, do you have a

wet nurse? You know she neglects your sniveling nose and

doesn’t give it the wiping you need…’’(Plato Republic,

342a, Bloom 1968 translation)). Ultimately, Thrasymachus

is not persuaded by the arguments Socrates offers but

rather ‘‘tamed’’ or humiliated by Socrates’ superior skill in

rhetoric, Thrasymachus’ supposed stock in trade (Bloom

1968, p. 336).

Perspectives, Pluralism, Showing and Saying 107

123

Another example of showing in Plato would be his use of

allegory, particularly that of the Cave and the comparison of

the Form of the Good with the Sun. The Sun is the last and

the hardest thing to perceive for the escaped cave dweller

because of its brightness. It is also that whose light makes

everything else visible or intelligible. This is a perfect

example of what cannot be said, namely the ultimate nature

of the Good, at least as Plato understands it. The Form of the

Good makes all things intelligible precisely because we

cannot understand the true nature of things unless we

understand not only their own Form but how that Form is

linked to the Good. Conversely, we cannot understand the

nature of the Good unless we have understood the Forms of

all other things. Plato is talking about a glimpse of the

Whole, which is not something we can know and certainly

not something which we can say. It is the limit of our world

and our understanding. This is like what Wittgenstein is

saying about the unsayable in the Tractatus and in his 1929

Lecture on Ethics (Wittgenstein 1929).

Plato, like Wittgenstein, also uses a ladder analogy. At

the conclusion of the Tractatus, quoted above, Wittgen-

stein says that his propositions are like the steps of a ladder

which one should throw away after having ascended on and

over them. Plato thinks that the dialectic leads us up an

intellectual ladder that we do not then throw away but

descend, keeping in mind, of course, whether we are on the

way up or the way down (Plato, Phaedo 102d-e). For Plato

it seems there is only one way to ascend the philosophical

ladder: dialectically. There also seems to be a ‘showing’ in

Plato rather than a telling but it is a substantial showing. It

is not a showing that saying is not possible. Nor is it even

an ineffable saying of the ineffable—the contradictory

stating that no statement can be made (McGinn 2001).

Rather, for Plato (and for other metaphysical thinkers), it

would be a showing of what cannot be stated adequately

not because it is so non-existent it cannot be brought to

speech but because what is shown overreaches what can be

said (Desmond 1995).

The most well known part of the Cave allegory is the

analogy between the shadows and sense perception. The

more subtle and illuminating one is that of the puppets or

artificial figures projected above the wall behind the pris-

oners whose shadows the prisoners see. If one interprets the

puppets as standing for the sacred texts, nothing conveys

the role those texts play in the consciousness of ordinary,

unphilosophical people so well as the image (Bloom 1968,

pp. 404–406). Impossible to see from the perspective of the

prisoners (until they learn what might be called ‘‘the art of

turning around’’ or philosophy), the figures nevertheless

‘‘cast long shadows’’ forming the prisoners’ perceptions

even without their knowing it. Moreover, they are part of a

puppet show, the work of the men behind the wall, who

represent the poets, the religious authorities and the

legislators. The puppets are also themselves images, ima-

ges of the realities outside the Cave. Hence the sacred texts

are culturally dominant images of the nature of reality.

Reality, however, can be seen only through the philo-

sophical journey that surpasses them.

One can ask, conversely, what are the kinds of philo-

sophical questions that a dramatic work can address? Vir-

tually any, with the exception of technical issues in analytic

philosophy (the ‘‘problem of reference’’ or the nature of

‘‘content’’) or in historical interpretation (What did Aqui-

nas really mean by ‘‘esse’’?). Rather, theater can address

questions which are broader in nature but also ones which

can be dramatized. The problem for the dramatic writer

parallels that of the philosopher. The philosopher reaches

his limit when he is on verge of failure through vagueness

or over-generality. The dramatist reaches their limit when,

having stated something, they then try to argue for it. They

cannot successfully argue the case, they have to embed it in

life through characters and dramatic action. If the ideas are

not dramatized, the play is a series of lectures. So what the

playwright must do is in a sense be like a pragmatist. By

this I mean, if the playwright seeks to explore a philo-

sophical topic, they must know what difference one

philosophical theory or another would make, to use James’

phrase, to ‘‘somebody, somehow, somewhere, and some-

when’’ (James 1981, p. 27). James persuasively pointed out

that philosophical theories can be ‘‘unstiffened’’ and

brought to life by the application of the pragmatic maxim,

i.e., the equivalence of philosophical conceptions with their

conceivable effects. Its application allows us to see the

vital significance a theory has or had at one time. This

significance may now be ‘‘the dead heart of the living tree’’

but that only means that ‘‘truth also has its paleontology’’

(James 1981, p. 33). In fact, most likely, the playwright, the

dramatist is exactly the one who probably finds philo-

sophical discourse unreal and ghostly (if not ghastly) and

finds their philosophical insights (even if they may not call

them that) in the way people speak and act. The dramatist

sees what is shown in the actions of dramatis personae,

whether in a play or in real life and they are driven to make

this happen. Like the reference Socrates makes to his

supposed ancestor Daedalus in Euthyphro, who makes

statues or figures so real, they move on their own, the

characters need to be wound up and set in motion to see

what they will do. And dramatic writers frequently speak as

if this were true: the characters determine the course of the

play; they only record ‘‘what happens.’’

Finally, I would like to return to where I began, i.e., with

the notion that both philosophy and theater present a clash

of perspectives. This is related to the view which I have

called ‘‘dialectical pluralism.’’ Dialectical pluralism is a

metaphysical view about the nature of reality. It holds that

there is a plurality of ways in which reality can be

108 K. Kennedy

123

understood because there is a plurality of ways in which

reality is. I call this form of pluralism ‘‘dialectical’’ because

it holds that the various aspects, modes or dimensions of

being, though irreducibly real, are inextricably interlinked.

Dialectical pluralism is both dialectical and pluralistic;

pluralistic in that the dialectic is not seen as achieving a

final, unified perspective (as in Hegel, for instance) and

dialectical because the pluralism envisioned by it does not

constitute disunity (as in William James’ pluralism, for

example). I coined this term in an attempt to characterize

the philosophy of Paul Weiss.2 Paul Weiss’s work is not as

well known now as it was in the mid to late twentieth

century after the publication of his magnum opus, Modes of

Being (1958). In this very ambitious work, Weiss argues

that reality consists of four interlocked ‘‘modes.’’ These

modes or aspects of reality were named Actuality, Exis-

tence, Ideality and God. Briefly, these modes are instanti-

ated as individual objects (Actuality), the on-going flow of

time (Existence), the rational (Ideality) and the ultimate

unity of everything (God). One of the easiest ways to

understand Weiss’s concept here is to think of how a

number of different philosophers in the Western tradition

have emphasized one or another of these modes. For

example, Plato is the philosopher par excellence of the

mode of Ideality with his world of transcendent Forms,

while his student Aristotle’s rejection of the theory of

Forms in favor of a metaphysics of substance is high-

lighting the mode of Actuality. Heraclitus and Bergson are

seen as concentrating on the mode of Existence with their

emphasis on the flux and the elan vital. Thomas Aquinas

might be thought of as a philosopher directed to the mode

God.

While this quick characterization raises more questions

than it answers, one of the objections it might raise is

instructive. Aside from the vagueness of the characteriza-

tion of these modes, immediately one might object that the

philosophers named above are being pigeon-holed. Aris-

totle is not concerned with substance alone; Plato does not

downgrade the role of Existence, etc. Interestingly, Weiss

also notes this and takes it as evidence of how the modes

are inextricably interlocked. Philosophers necessarily

engage more than one mode because it is impossible to

describe even one of them without the mediation of the

some other. In Modes of Being, Weiss describes in some

detail how the modes provide evidence of one another

(particularly with reference to the mode God) (Weiss 1958,

4.01–4.13). Consequently, it would never be fair to

describe one of the great philosophers as concerned only

with one mode of being. What the various philosophers do

by their particular emphases is isolate to the extent possible

a particular mode and make it their focal point of presen-

tation. However, the attempt to simply explain things from

the perspective of one mode would be impossible. In fact,

Weiss notes, it is the other modes that allow us to char-

acterize some chosen mode. So we cannot do without a

pluralistic perspective. So, for instance, while Aristotle

interprets the question, ‘‘What is Being?’’ which is the

central question of metaphysics, as the question, ‘‘What is

substance?’’, nevertheless he emphasizes form as the cru-

cial aspect of substance, in some sense following Plato.

This is unavoidable if the pluralist is right. This is why the

fact of philosophical controversy is so important.

If we put aside the general characterization of Paul

Weiss’s metaphysical system (of which there are a number

of stages3) and the attendant interpretation of the history of

Western philosophy, the moral to be drawn here is that the

attempt to characterize reality from a single perspective is

impossible. This notion can also be spelled out without

proposing the grand metaphysical scheme articulated by

Paul Weiss. In fact, in recent discussions within the Anglo-

American analytic tradition, historically quite hostile to

metaphysics, pluralism has begun to be a central topic. In

terms of the history of that tradition, it is obvious that it is

one in which pragmatism and pluralism gradually over-

came the rigid reductionism with which the tradition

began. This is seen most clearly in the writings of Nelson

Goodman, Hilary Putnam and Richard Rorty. Recently, the

case for pluralism has come to be made within that sub area

of analytic philosophy having to do with the theory of

truth, in particular in some work of Crispin Wright (Wright

1992). Wright has suggested that a certain pluralism

regarding truth should be taken seriously.4 He proposes this

as a strategy for dealing with the realist/anti-realist debate,

i.e., the debate over whether our true statements represent a

reality independent of us (realism) or not (anti-realism).

His basic argument is that there are domains of discourse

where anti-realism seems appropriate (like discussions of

what’s funny) and areas where realism seems more

appropriate (physics). Trying to solve the problem globally

doesn’t seem to work because you end up with absurd

consequences either way. If we are global realists, then we

are committed to there being comic properties ‘‘out there’’

regardless of whether any human experiences them. If we

are globally anti-realist, then true statements in physics are

merely what we consider warrantedly assertible but not

representative of an objective world that could exist with-

out us. Wright suggests that we define instead a default

position for the interpretation of what he calls the ‘‘truth

predicate,’’ namely ‘‘minimal truth.’’ According to mini-

malism about truth, the truth predicate should always be

2 In a lecture presented in 1995 at the Metaphysical Society of

America meeting (Kennedy 2000).

3 See Reck (1995) and Kennedy (1996).4 See also Lynch (1998).

Perspectives, Pluralism, Showing and Saying 109

123

taken as conforming to certain platitudes about truth (e.g.,

to assert means to present as true, true statements have

significant negations, a statement can be justified without

being true and vice versa, etc.). Beyond the minimal

interpretation of the truth predicate, different discourses

could be interpreted as having more than minimal truth

according to various sorts of tests that might be appropriate

regarding our intuitions about that subject matter.

What is the significance of this for the topic of philosophy

and theater? Well, first of all, this pluralistic account of the

meaning of the truth predicate indicates that there isn’t one

way to interpret (except ‘‘minimally’’) what a statement’s

being true means which works for all domains of discourse.

Philosophically (or metaphysically) speaking, that might be

interpreted as meaning that there isn’t one way the world is

(Kennedy 1997). The world is many ways and can be

described, explained, encountered, etc., through the

employment of a multiplicity of forms of discourse. If this is

in fact the ‘‘way the world is,’’ so to speak, then it is not

surprising that theater should have such a compelling effect

on us as human knowers. What a play can do is show us the

clash of perspectives which we experience but cannot state.

What we can say, we can say only within a particular domain

of discourse. Any form of discourse which we employ will

fail to be meaningful or adequate when we try to step beyond

what it is enabled to say. Or to put it in terms of the theory of

truth, statements in different domains of discourse will be

true or false in different ways. What we cannot do is forge a

form of discourse which will be completely adequate to

everything precisely because the limitations of our various

language games are the conditions of their meaningfulness

which is connected to the proper interpretation of their truth

predicate. This, however, does not mean that we have now

discovered the form or forms of discourse which alone are

meaningful. That would be the early Wittgenstein’s point

and require the abandonment of philosophy. However, as I

believe the later Wittgenstein realized, it is impossible to set

a limit on what can be meaningful. Setting a limit on the

meaningful means that we stand on both sides of the limit—

which is why Wittgenstein is forced to end the Tractatus

with the paradoxical notion of his propositions being ones

which we climb on as the rungs of a ladder which we then

throw away (and stand where?). Rather, we must tolerate an

irreducible diversity of language games.

So how do we represent the world? We do it by forging

a language-game called philosophy, the language-game of

language-games. Philosophy tries to articulate reality at the

boundaries of our various domains of discourse and show

what the whole of reality is like even though it cannot be

said in the straightforward, factual way other more specific

things can be said. Its truth predicate might be interpreted

‘‘minimally.’’ So philosophy may be a kind of saying that

verges on showing.

Consequently, philosophy is wise to use allegories,

metaphors and analogies. An analogy I have used in

teaching metaphysics is that of Rubik’s Cube. This

mechanical puzzle is an interesting image for the nature of

reality as understood by dialectical pluralism. While a

single reality, so to speak, it also makes possible a vast

variety of combinatorial possibilities. If we were to alle-

gorize the six basic colors as basic domains of discourse

like science, art, history, religion, etc., then we could

envision the world as a complex whole which can be

represented in a large though not infinite number of ways.

To carry the analogy further, reductionism could be inter-

preted as the attempt to picture the cube (reality) as having

only one color, which is not true. Relativism would be the

claim made, paradoxically, by some philosophers that there

are an infinite number of ways in which the cube (reality)

can be seen, all of which are equally legitimate. Pluralism

is then the view that avoids the extremes of reductionism

and relativism. This rather simple-minded analogy how-

ever is useful for another reason. According to it, there is

no one way to see the whole of reality. Instead, to glimpse

what the whole must be like in order to appear the way it

does one must encounter a great number of different per-

spectives on it. Also, we are left with an image and not

even one which admits of a single view.

The practice of theater, then, is another way of seeing

what is going on in philosophy. The diverse characters

engage with one another in their clashing perspectives on

reality. The movement of the play is dialectical and on-

going, as is philosophy, not foundational and reductionis-

tic. There is no one character, or even play, that achieves

everything a play can just as there is no philosopher who

succeeds in answering every question (nevertheless, we all

have our favorites). Furthermore, philosophy is advanced

through the use of some of the tools of theater, as in Plato’s

dialogues and Wittgenstein’s analogies. Paul Weiss’s and,

to some extent, Crispin Wright’s metaphysical pluralism

give us a picture of the complex, irreducible nature of the

various ‘‘modes’’ or aspects of reality. But neither philos-

ophy nor theater can replace one another, just like the critic

cannot replace the live performance. Metaphysics, a little

like criticism (and the metaphysician and the critic), are

bound to be despised because of the nature of their task.

Nevertheless, each is important because they provide a

more general, interpretive stance. What the one shows, the

other seeks to say; sometimes we need the one, sometimes

the other.

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