Abstract
Approaching (im)politeness philosophically aims to reflect upon how insights into the understanding and interpretation of (im)politeness can be gained from a philosophical standpoint, how research into philosophical (im)politeness can contribute to enriching theoretical knowledge in philosophical scholarship. Philosophizing (im)politeness promises to open up an alternative avenue for a coherent and sufficient understanding and clarification of being and beings, questioning the unquestioned and clearing the relation between being and beings. After a brief review on some traditional, representative views on (im)politeness from a philosophical lens, this introduction summarizes the chapters that follow focusing four key aspects of philosophical (im)politeness, namely, social, normative, emotional and moral, and makes some further comments on these four aspects.
General knowledge always precedes local knowledge here,
if the latter is to be ordered and directed through philosophy:
in the absence of which all acquired knowledge can yield nothing more than fragmentary groping around and no science.
(Kant, 2006: 4; italics in original).
The original German text reads as follows (Kant, 1912: 5): “Die Generalkenntnis geht hierin immer vor der Lokalkenntnis voraus, wenn jene durch Philosophie geordnet und geleitet werden soll: ohne welche alles erworbene Erkenntnis nichts als fragmentarisches Herumtappen und keine Wissenschaft abgeben kann.”
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Notes
- 1.
This edition was recently modified in December 2020. See https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/146878? (accessed 7 July 2021).
- 2.
Recall that those philosophical views have also served as the foundation of pragmatics. In this sense, it seems safe and reasonable to say that traditional approaches to politeness are largely influenced by pragmatics.
- 3.
According to Klein (1994: 175), “Shaftesbury insisted there was an alternative politeness, a true politeness, here identified with ‘a true Relish and simplicity in Things or Manners.’”
- 4.
The other three cardinal virtues are honesty, magnanimousness and bravery (Nietzsche, 1997: 554).
- 5.
- 6.
Korsgaard (1996) presents four accounts in relation to the source of normativity as follows: voluntarism, realism, reflective endorsement, and the appeal to autonomy; she argues for a modified version of Kant’s theory that normativity is derived from our own autonomy.
- 7.
Of course, this is not to deny the existence of non-politeness or non-impoliteness in our secular life-world.
- 8.
Much research on (im)politeness is centered around human beings, and there is little talk about (im)politeness in the animal world. People may, as a matter of fact, have noticed that sometimes, if not often, polite animals may have better manners than humans do (see, e.g., Yapalater, 2013).
- 9.
Here, I am reminded of Pushkin’s (2018: 5) lines in his poem titled “My Portrait”: “I love the world, its rip-roar life; from loneliness flee.”
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Xie, C. (2021). Introduction: Approaching (Im)politeness Philosophically. In: Xie, C. (eds) The Philosophy of (Im)politeness. Advances in (Im)politeness Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81592-9_1
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