Another reason why philosophers are useless

[Tyrel]

The dismay of those who wonder why philosophy doesn’t advance at the rate of science indicates, to me, a childish disposition. It just isn’t reasonable to think that an enterprise is useful to the extent that it answers the questions or solves the puzzles within its own domain. By that standard computer science would be much more useful enterprise than the hard sciences. The question about usefulness can only be meaningfully asked or answered once it is asked against a backdrop of goals. What makes something useful, and what makes some things more useful than others - the answer will just depend on our goals. Say we have the goal of trying to determine whether moral facts have an ontological foundation, or whether there aren’t any moral facts at all, will psychology, dentistry or chemistry solve that question? Nope, and so with respect to that goal, those disciplines will be useless, just like physics and art history and macro-economics. Philosophy, it seems, is the only arena in which progress can be made at all (and progress can be made in philosophy, though because the subject matter is harder than science it also takes longer than science). Now if one thinks that the majority of the most important questions we have to answer are like the moral question, in that they fall under philosophy rather than something more specific, then philosophy will become the most useful enterprise. If one wants to build a bridge, one will not do philosophy (or should not do philosophy). If one wants to make sense of the world we live in, philosophy is all we have.
By the way, I think that philosophobia is ultimately just an extension of theophobia, since philosophy is one of the primary places where Christianity fares so much better than other worldviews with which it is in competition, and where, apart from religious considerations, philosophy purchases so many persuasive arguments for the existence of God that one will naturally keep philosophy at a distance if they want to keep God at a distance.

Here are some things you should listen to and tell me what you think (they are meant to be thought-provoking, and I’m hoping you won’t notice that my offering you 'thought-provoking material is really just a ploy in order to introduce you to philosophy *.) Let me know what you think:

reasonablefaith.org/philosophy-whats-the-use

reasonablefaith.org/stenger-on-science-and-religion
reasonablefaith.org/plantinga-on-science-and-religion*

 

[Peter_Plato]

Now, I find it embarrassing to try to defend philosophy in general, since the study of philosophy is properly construed as the discipline of thinking hard about stuff, and to present any intelligent critique of philosophy is itself going to be philosophical, in which case the claim that philosophy cannot do anything useful is self defeating insofar as it is issued with the purpose, presumably useful, of pointing out the utter uselessness of philosophy. I can think of no more stupid a position to adopt on any issue whatsoever than to adopt a wholesale rejection of the enterprise of thinking critically, consistently and carefully. It is a dangerous thing to promote an anti-philosophical attitude, because that’s just tantamount to promoting an attitude which is anti-thought (or anti-critical-thought). Philosophy just is critical thinking. Moreover, philosophy is the only domain in which we can pursue the answers to the most important practical questions, such as whether there are moral duties, what they are, whether the human mind is equipped to understand the world as it is or merely create models for the sake of negotiating our way around in it, whether God exists, whether death is the end of the road, whether mathematical truths are mind-independent or else are model dependently true, whether science is a rational enterprise, whether anything is a rational enterprise, and so on.

Welcome to the Twilight Zone!

We have been through this déjà vu before with Innoruk’s alter ego Innocente in this thread:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=792810&page=21

It was futile then as it will be now.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Is football useless because there are so many opposing teams trying to be #1?

Opposing philosophies are not useless when you find the best one. The others may be useless or relatively useless or inadequate from that point on.

Those who condemn philosophy as useless strike me as weak minded people who are easily overwhelmed, intimidated, terrified at the daunting prospect of finding a true philosophy.

It is altogether easier to give up the belief in Truth itself.

 

[minion]

No, it is a statement of fact, coming from observation.

But even believing what you observe corresponds to fact is a philosophical position ^^;

 

[Tyrel]

Welcome to the Twilight Zone!

We have been through this déjà vu before with Innoruk’s alter ego Innocente in this thread:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=792810&page=21

It was futile then as it will be now.

I see. That makes sense of a few of the comments directed his way, but I wonder how you’re so sure it’s the same guy? After all, given what figures like Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow, Lawrence Krauss, Richard Dawkins and other “theophobes” who are doing what they can to de-legitimize philosophy. It isn’t so uncommon a position anymore to maintain that philosophy is a useless enterprise. Innocente also has himself tagged as a Baptist, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for Innoruk. Do we know that one is identical with the other?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Tyrel

Do we know that one is identical with the other?

I think we do, because inocente would definitely be the one to start a thread by this title. So why hasn’t he shown up to participate? Because he is Innoruk.

Note that Innoruk has done only 46 posts. That makes him a relative newcomer.

 

[polytropos]

Having debated with Innoruk quite a bit (at least relative to his post count), I don’t think he is inocente. I think we should take him at his word.

I think there is just a strong inclination among some to discard philosophy because it has not produced uncontroversial, visible results like science has. The problem is that all knowledge in principle cannot be obtained from science. So you are left with a decision: study philosophy and try to figure out who’s right, or don’t study philosophy and certainly be wrong.

 

[Tyrel]

Having debated with Innoruk quite a bit (at least relative to his post count), I don’t think he is inocente. I think we should take him at his word.

I think there is just a strong inclination among some to discard philosophy because it has not produced uncontroversial, visible results like science has. The problem is that all knowledge in principle cannot be obtained from science. So you are left with a decision: study philosophy and try to figure out who’s right, or don’t study philosophy and certainly be wrong.

Actually, I think our alternatives are worse than that. One cannot strictly get knowledge out of science unless one makes some presumptions which are purely theoretical and have no methodological consequences, such as believing in scientific realism. The scientific enterprise is not only constricted to remain in the domain of the narrowly empirical (narrowly empirical rather than broadly empirical because our apprehension of beauty or moral obligation, along with our religious experience, is broadly empirical), but the whole enterprise is, as I said, just about constructing models of the world, proposing those models as explanations, and then finding an explanation which best exemplifies the virtues we look for in a good explanation. Put that way, you can imagine how some scientific model looks like it is the most empirically adequate model, and thus preference lies in its favor, but it could be wrong. In fact, one could both admit that some scientific model is the best science has and still have some defeater for believing in that scientific model given non-scientific considerations.

To give but one example, take the case of the copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is a purely indeterministic account. The philosopher who believes in the Principle of Sufficient Reason (i.e., that there is no contingent fact without some explanation) will argue that the copenhagen model of quantum mechanical events should not be believed even while it is the best scientific model currently available.

My point is that science only delivers any truths to us at all through the filter of philosophy. There’s no getting around philosophy. In fact, I’m inclined to think, as the Medievals did, that science is just natural philosophy. When people attack philosophy, they generally don’t want to throw the sciences out too (like throwing the baby out with the bath water). Instead they want to throw metaphysics out, epistemology out, aesthetics out, the study of ethics and/or the study of morality, etc. Usually they don’t even want to throw logic out, they just want logic to become its own discipline, like Mathematics has. The hard sciences, however, are really just disciplines in which one practices according to certain rules (like, say, methodological naturalism, or something like methodological naturalism ceterus paribus), and builds models which aim to explain and predict empirical data. To get anything other than “X model is the most (or not the most) empirically adequate on offer today” out of science one needs to make enough philosophical presumptions to infer something from the fact that X model is/isn’t the most empirically adequate on offer today.

 

[Innoruk]

Sorry, but this is pretty absurd. All fields have terminology, and all fields use their own terminology internally. The fact is that the words can be translated into simple, everyday terms, but it’s not the burden of the philosopher to do this if defining things helps him structure his argument.

But it is the burden of the one who uses a special terminology to explain what it means. He cannot expect the listener to decipher the meaning of his ideas.

When I go to a math class, and start to talk about calculus, it would be ridiculous to present the rules of derivation and integration without explaining that the derivative of a function is simply the tangent of the function and the integral of the function is the area between the function and the x-axis. This simple explanation is, of course, insufficient to make the student proficient in calculating the derivative of a function, but it establishes a common ground for communication. And you call this “absurd”?

 

[Innoruk]

Well, I’m a realist concerning aesthetic truths, so I think the truth value assigned to that proposition is literally and objectively ‘true’ (of course there are truths which are subjective, such as ‘I am here’ - though I think in the case of something’s being beautiful, one can define objective beauty by something’s ability to beatify). However, you present an interesting point, that for the anti-realist, if the sentence is a proposition, and if it isn’t true or false, then they, not unlike the mathematical intuitionists, do not hold to the law of excluded middle.

Obviously we talk two different languages. In my vocabulary a “realist” is someone who considers the external, objective reality as “primary”, and the abstract, subjective opinions about the reality as “secondary”. Quite the contrary of the “idealist”, who considers concepts as “primary” and the reality as “secondary”. Plato’s philosophy comes to mind here. (I always wanted to ask a Platonist about the “ideal pile of dung or excrement” of which our production of waste in the morning is merely an imperfect reflection.) Based upon this example, is the proposition: “excrement has a very bad smell” a true or a false proposition? It is bad for humans, and it is quite pleasing for dogs - so there is objective answer.

Here’s the beauty of having studied philosophy: you know both how to think critically and logically, and you also know a great deal about things like the philosophy of language. Let me give you an example of a sentence which is perfectly grammatical, and yet is not a proposition (its expression has no sense or tells no story about the way the world is).

Also, you said that a sentence is just a proposition expressed in linguistic form, but clearly the following is a sentence: “Do your homework!” Yet, clearly that statement isn’t a proposition (it doesn’t propose anything about the way the world is or could possibly be). It’s mood is imperative rather than indicative.

Mostly true, but I disagree on a few counts. Of course a question or an imperative are not propositions, per se. But the sentence of “An object, which resides to the north from the North Pole” is a proposition, albeit a meaningless, nonsensical one, along the lines of “this sentence is false”. Some propositions cannot be assigned a true / false value.

It could be that we have different concepts at play here, but I think what I mean by a realist position is really just the common sense intuitive notion. Namely, that some proposition or set of propositions (i.e., model) about the world is true if and only if it corresponds to the way the world is independent of what anyone believes or perceives. Stephen Hawking does not believe that, as he has expressed brilliantly in his discussion of the difference between six day creationism and big bang cosmology (in The Grand Design), where he explains that neither one of these are strictly true, and neither one is closer to being true, but rather truth, in the correspondence sense, is just too much to hope for, even in science.

I cannot speak for Hawking. But I am sure that the actual reality is so complex that we need to learn much more before we can create a “true theory of life, universe and everything”. When the dichotomy of “is light a wave or a set of particles” was presented, the proponents thought that it was a genuine dilemma. Only later came the concept that our “simplistic view” is incorrect. Every time we hit a “bottom” in physics, and thought that we found the “true” elementary particles, it turned out that we need to dig “deeper”.

Now, I find it embarrassing to try to defend philosophy in general Philosophy just is critical thinking.

Critical thinking is not restricted to philosophy.

Moreover, philosophy is the only domain in which we can pursue the answers to the most important practical questions, such as whether there are moral duties, what they are, whether the human mind is equipped to understand the world as it is or merely create models for the sake of negotiating our way around in it, whether God exists, whether death is the end of the road, whether mathematical truths are mind-independent or else are model dependently true, whether science is a rational enterprise, whether anything is a rational enterprise, and so on.

Most of these are nonsensical questions for the materialist / realist (these two terms are interchangeable).

The ultimate, major deficiency of “philosophy” is that it does not present an “epistemology” for its metaphysical propositions. Using your examples, there is no objective epistemological method to decide if the proposition “God exists” is true or not, since the term “exists” is simply undefined in this context.

As a matter of fact, I don’t think that philosophy should be dismissed completely. It can be an interesting mind-game, somewhat like mathematics. Of course mathematics can be used for modeling certain aspects of reality. I am against the empty assertions of metaphysical propositions for which no objective epistemological method is presented. (And “revelation” or “the church teaches…” or “the bible says”, etc… are not epistemological methods.)

I am getting too close to the 6000 limit. But I want to say that I very much enjoy your (name removed by moderator)ut. This post of yours was so full with good thoughts and information, that I was unable to reflect on most of it. We shall need to choose “smaller” targets.

 

[Innoruk]

Please stop speculating about my identity. I am NOT inocente, period.

 

[Innoruk]

Having debated with Innoruk quite a bit (at least relative to his post count), I don’t think he is inocente. I think we should take him at his word.

Thank you.

I think there is just a strong inclination among some to discard philosophy because it has not produced uncontroversial, visible results like science has. The problem is that all knowledge in principle cannot be obtained from science. So you are left with a decision: study philosophy and try to figure out who’s right, or don’t study philosophy and certainly be wrong.

Of course, I like to present unpopular views, mostly for fun. As I said to Tyrel (and even though he is a newcomer, I already admire his style and his posts) the main problem with philosophy that it is unable to present an epistemology for its own propositions.

And metaphysics without epistemology is empty speculation.

 

[jonathan_hili]

Sorry, Innoruk, I have to disagree. While philosophers might not always be right, and, like everyone else, can come up with confused concepts or definitions, they do encourage thinking about concepts and definitions. This, if anything, justifies the philosophical pursuit.

 

[cornbread_r2]

steps forward and raises fist

I AM INOCENTE!!

 

[inocente]

Peter
**
Still think you are Innocente or, by the way you fawn over him, his mother or maybe a twin sibling. **

I also think he is inocente without the Baptist label. Only inocente is so rabidly against philosophy.

By the way, if he is not inocente, why hasn’t inocente shown up?

Just looked in on this thread, and see that already it has degenerated into low, baseless personal attacks.

If you think I am posting under an alias, ask the moderator to check whether the IP address is the same or whether even the country code in the address is the same. But of course you won’t because all you have are unjustifiable accusations.

My experience on another thread is that when some posters cannot make a logical argument they resort to personal attacks and witch hunts. All they are doing is to demonstrate their abject ignorance of philosophy and their inability to take part in rational discussion, and for those reasons alone they are not worth debating.

I will report you and anyone else who continues with these cowardly underhanded attempts at bullying.

 

[Innoruk]

Actually, I think our alternatives are worse than that. One cannot strictly get knowledge out of science unless one makes some presumptions which are purely theoretical and have no methodological consequences, such as believing in scientific realism.

Every word is pure gold! The trick is that those basic principles you mention are not the results of some abstract, a-priori, ivory-tower contemplation, rather the distillate of down-to-earth, “dirty” empiricism. Nihil est in intellectu…

The scientific enterprise is not only constricted to remain in the domain of the narrowly empirical (narrowly empirical rather than broadly empirical because our apprehension of beauty or moral obligation, along with our religious experience, is broadly empirical), but the whole enterprise is, as I said, just about constructing models of the world, proposing those models as explanations, and then finding an explanation which best exemplifies the virtues we look for in a good explanation.

True, again. I would add something: “the explanation is sufficiently good for making predictions”. And also, the current theory is always tentative, subject to modification or even complete dismissal, if the objective reality contradicts it. This is why science and religion cannot be reconciled, since religion is based on unchangeable “dawg-mah”-s.

To give but one example, take the case of the copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is a purely indeterministic account. The philosopher who believes in the Principle of Sufficient Reason (i.e., that there is no contingent fact without some explanation) will argue that the copenhagen model of quantum mechanical events should not be believed even while it is the best scientific model currently available.

It should be accepted as a tool for making predictions. The other implications are simply speculations. Of course, speculations can be useful - if they can be substantiated.

My point is that science only delivers any truths to us at all through the filter of philosophy. There’s no getting around philosophy. In fact, I’m inclined to think, as the Medievals did, that science is just natural philosophy.

One can attach “names” to pretty much anything. The fundamental difference between science and philosophy is that science has a feedback mechanism, while philosophy does not. If there is a pure metaphysical statement, then there are two possibilities:

1. the statement refers to reality, in which case it is subject to scientific scrutiny. or
2. it refers to some never-never land, without a possibility of figuring out if that statement is “true” or not.

Instead they want to throw metaphysics out, epistemology out, aesthetics out, the study of ethics and/or the study of morality, etc.

I only wish to throw out the empty speculations.

Usually they don’t even want to throw logic out, they just want logic to become its own discipline, like Mathematics has.

Let’s not confuse the inductive, observation based sciences with the deductive, axiomatic abstract “sciences”. Both have their proper epistemological methods to separate the “wheat” from the “chaff”. As the current example - the pretty much abandoned topic of this thread shows - there are the two contradicting “definitions” of free will, and no epistemological method to decide which one is true.

 

[Innoruk]

Sorry, Innoruk, I have to disagree. While philosophers might not always be right, and, like everyone else, can come up with confused concepts or definitions, they do encourage thinking about concepts and definitions. This, if anything, justifies the philosophical pursuit.

Indeed. As an interesting mental game it has its place under the sun. I need to repeat: metaphysics without epistemology is empty speculation. Actually, I am going to make that my signature.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

But it is. Our desires, inclinations, wishes are part of what we are. We evaluate them, their corollaries, and choose a course of action. Again the question is: “does the concept of free will incorporate the ability of acting on that will”?

So what determines the course of action we choose? Is it some aggregate desire? Is it possible for me to desire X the most, but choose Y? If not, then how have I freely chosen X? (It would seem that my choice of X was determined by my desires.)

 

[Innoruk]

So what determines the course of action we choose? Is it some aggregate desire? Is it possible for me to desire X the most, but choose Y? If not, then how have I freely chosen X? (It would seem that my choice of X was determined by my desires.)

Sorry, this is a different question.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Sorry, this is a different question.

Uh, if it were the same question, I wouldn’t have asked it.

Whatever.