Is Philosophy Ever Profound?
I can't recall ever having had the inclination to call a bit of philosophy "profound". I've been wondering recently what's behind attributions of profundity.
The opposite of profound might be "superficial". I do think some philosophy is superficial. For example, if one critiques Descartes's Meditations by complaining that he ignores somatic sensations in the gut, that critique is superficial (unless one draws something interesting and general from that observation). But it doesn't seem to follow that any critique of the Meditations that fails to be superficial is consequently profound.
Is profundity a matter of striking at the core of an issue? Berkeley strikes at the core of our conception of "material objects" in his suggestion that there are none such, but only minds and their experiences, co-ordinated by God. Ayer strikes at the heart of ethics when he says there are no moral facts. Yet these thinkers are not, I believe, the sort often labeled profound. Nor are those who give straightforward responses to their arguments in defense of mainstream opinion. Perhaps their views are too clear and comprehensible to be profound?
A philosopher writes about a matter of considerable importance; it's hard entirely to understand what he is saying, but you get hints and glimmers; any attempt to express it in familiar terms (or in newly-invented but clearly articulated terms) seems to fall short; straightforward objections seem to miss the mark, because they depend on exactly what the text does not provide, a plain interpretation that cannot plausibly be shifted to accommodate difficulties. If you are prone to philosophical trust -- if you believe that there is an elusive truth behind the text that you don't quite understand and that plain-speaking philosophers always (even necessarily?) miss -- then perhaps you will consider the text profound. Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Wittgenstein invite this sort of attitude. In contemporary "analytic" circles, maybe Davidson and McDowell do (among devotees).
If I think no philosophy is profound, then maybe that's because I am not much prone to philosophical trust, and because I am doubtful that there are any important philosophical truths so complex that they cannot be clearly stated in 400 pages.
Or, maybe, emitting evocative hints and glimmers that defy clear interpretation and engender interesting thoughts in others -- maybe that just is profundity?