Suspicion of philosophy is a recurring theme in the poetry of Fernando Pessoa. In one characteristic poem he writes:
To see the fields and the river
It isn't enough to open the window.
To see the trees and the flowers
It isn't enough not to be blind.
It is also necessary to have no philosophy.
With philosophy there are no trees, just ideas.
There is only each one of us, like a cave.
There is only a shut window, and the whole world outside,
And a dream of what could be seen if the window were opened,
Which is never what is seen when the window is opened.
I read this poem often. It is a touchstone for me. It reminds me of my mission as a philosopher, of what I take my work to be. You ask, “But the poem is so anti-philosophical! How can you find your mission there?” My answer: by beginning, philosophically, with a distinction. I make a distinction between philosophizing and having a philosophy. The former is the activity of reflecting in a particularly insistent way, a way that holds everything in the universe questionable, including the activity of reflecting in this particularly insistent way. The latter, by contrast, is a having that is no different in principle from having other traits. One is so many centimeters tall, blue-eyed, small-boned and.. a spinozist, say. Well, few of us have a philosophy with a name but unless you have learned to philosophize, you have a philosophy. Your common sense beliefs about the world imply hundreds of substantive philosophical propositions. You cannot have your common sense without also accepting those implications. If you reflect on these implications and consider alternatives and amendments to increase their consistency, then you are philosophizing. If you accept your common sense, like you accept your height or eye color, then you have a philosophy. I think Pessoa is right. To have a philosophy in this sense does cut us off from the world and from each other. Here is my point: the goal of philosophizing is to escape having a philosophy. The unattainable telos of philosophical activity is “to have no philosophy.” In this utopia the world and the self are in direct contact. No curtain of ideas stands between them; the window is open.