The Problems of Philosophy

[lpetrich]

Part of the problem is a question of definition. What counts as philosophy?

We could address that by considering a lot of questions and problems and then asking whether they belong in something or other that may be called "philosophy".

Part of the problem is that what we now call "science" used to be called "natural philosophy"; rigorous and well-defined branches of "philosophy" tend to be called "science".

A line between philosophy and science can be difficult to draw, and on the opposite side, a line between philosophy and theology can also be difficult to draw.

Here's a partial list:


Is there an external world? Does anything other than oneself exist?
Do we directly perceive an external world? Or do we infer its existence from certain experiences that we have?
What is the ontological status of abstract ideas? Of shared properties? Of emergent properties?
Are mathematical concepts discovered or constructed?
Can mind exist without a material substrate?
Are good and evil, right and wrong objective? What are they based on?
What is the best way to lead one's life?


One can easily think of more, and it must be said that these are very different kinds of questions.

[Alex]

This is a conventional inventory of some of the concerns of philosophy, and I wouldn't quarrel with it. But there is, or there was, a school of thought which claimed philosophy is not a search for first principles or a guide to the formulation of speculative moral and other truths. Its functions should be boiled down to the clarification and logical analysis of concepts. All else is sophistry and illusion.

"If someone chooses to doubt the truth of all propositions he ordinarily believes, it's not in the power of philosophy to reassure him."

For an entertaining exposition of this point of view, see Language, Truth and Logic by A J Ayer.

[lpetrich]

But there is, or there was, a school of thought which claimed philosophy is not a search for first principles or a guide to the formulation of speculative moral and other truths. Its functions should be boiled down to the clarification and logical analysis of concepts. All else is sophistry and illusion.
That may describe analytic philosophy fairly well.

Bertrand Russell is perhaps its best-known advocate, and it seems to me that Daniel Dennett and Richard Carrier fall into that tradition.

I mention Richard Carrier because of his book Sense and Goodness without God, and these interviews:
Richard Carrier Interview at OpEdNews.com (http://secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=3840)
Richard Carrier vs. Academic Philosophy (http://secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=3760)

That Wikipedia article states that analytic philosophy may be considered "a tradition of doing philosophy characterised by an emphasis on clarity and argument, often achieved via modern formal logic and analysis of language, and a respect for the natural sciences". That may describe Richard Carrier's concerns fairly well, though he criticizes many academic philosophers for overdoing analysis of language.

-

On the opposite side is Continental philosophy, which includes the likes of:

German idealism: Kant, Hegel, etc.
Existentialism
Postmodernism, deconstructionism, critical theory, etc.

German idealism had given rise to the national stereotype described in Bertrand Russell: An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (http://www.solstice.us/russell/intellectual_rubbish.html): "... the Germans were thought of as a nation of spectacled professors, evolving everything out of their inner consciousness, and scarcely aware of the outer world ..."

This tradition of philosophy involves writing long, difficult-to-understand treatises in obscure jargon, treatises that provoke a tl;dr response.

[Yahzi]

To me, philosophy was always the spirit of inquiry.

Once you know the questions, it becomes a science.

[Alex]

I followed the link and read Bert Russell's An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish. It has a number of witty observations about superstition that I'd like to remember but will certainly forget....

It's often amusing when solemn discussions of philosophical problems are undermined by iconoclasm and levity: I'm a sucker for both.

[David B]

I followed the Russell link, too.

He wasn't bad, old dirty Bertie:D

David

[LukeS]

I am accustomed to thinking that debates grow fractally along the lines of something like diffusion limited aggregation. There are excellent debate maps available at Debategraph. (http://debategraph.org/) I suppose that philosophy might have had a similar evolution.

[Danhalen]

German idealism had given rise to the national stereotype described in Bertrand Russell: An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (http://www.solstice.us/russell/intellectual_rubbish.html): "... the Germans were thought of as a nation of spectacled professors, evolving everything out of their inner consciousness, and scarcely aware of the outer world ..."

This tradition of philosophy involves writing long, difficult-to-understand treatises in obscure jargon, treatises that provoke a tl;dr response.I find it amusing that Russell's protégé, Wittgenstein, crosses the chasm between analytics and continentals. Russell basically said he had nothing more he could say about philosophy after Wittgenstein wrote the Tractatus. Then the later Wittgenstein changed his mind on some of the stances he took in the Tractatus and wrote some of the greatest works on the philosophy of language without appealing to the strict nature of logic (in the tradition of the continentals). I also find it amusing that the Vienna Circle formed around the words of Wittgenstein's last premise of the Tractatus: what we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence. Personally, I think they took the meaning of that premise in a way it was never intended.

I am in a very pluralistic philosophy program that focuses on British/American analytic philosophy in equal measure to continental philosophy (we've recently added some quality eastern and African thought as well). The interesting part about the program is that a large number of my professors are from the old school of analytic thought and they must teach us continental thought. The unprejudiced analytic philosopher gets a lot out of continental thought, and then finds that the language employed by continental types is simply a necessary evil because the concepts being discussed do not have a proper vocabulary. The continentals tend to try and "eff" the ineffable.

Analytics tend to describe continentals as people who say nothing by saying a whole lot, and continentals tend to describe analytics as walking calculators. The problem seems to stem from the split that occurred when the Vienna Circle formed. They basically stated that if a concept cannot be reduced to logical analysis (read: the proper language), then the concept is not worth discussing because it's not real. The analytics that followed them eventually moved away from such a strong position, but kept the habit of relying heavily on logic. Quine and Davidson are perfect examples of those that kept the prejudices of the Vienna Circle, but dropped the damning assertions.

[lpetrich]

Analytics tend to describe continentals as people who say nothing by saying a whole lot, and continentals tend to describe analytics as walking calculators.
Seems that I myself am firmly in the analytic tradition. :)

To me, philosophy was always the spirit of inquiry.
What would that have to do with my OP's questions?

Once you know the questions, it becomes a science.
What kind of "science" might my OP's questions be?

[Yahzi]

What kind of "science" might my OP's questions be?
* Is there an external world? Does anything other than oneself exist?
Physics.

* Do we directly perceive an external world? Or do we infer its existence from certain experiences that we have?
Isn't the act of perceiving something an experience? Anyway, neuroscience.

* What is the ontological status of abstract ideas? Of shared properties? Of emergent properties?
See, this is still philosophy, because there's nothing useful you can do with it yet. Except maybe math.

* Are mathematical concepts discovered or constructed?
Linguistics, as in figuring out what you mean by discovered vs constructed.

* Can mind exist without a material substrate?
This question has already been definitively settled. It's called "medicine."

* Are good and evil, right and wrong objective? What are they based on?
A perfect example, insomuch as it is currently philosophy but slowly turning into sociobiology. Good and Evil are beginning to be understood in evolutionary terms. When they are, then we can leave ethics to the scientists.

* What is the best way to lead one's life?
Sounds like psychology to me.

[Preno]

* Is there an external world? Does anything other than oneself exist?
Physics.Surely you don't need physics to be able to know that things other than myself exist? Even little children know that, and they don't know physics.
* Are mathematical concepts discovered or constructed?
Linguistics, as in figuring out what you mean by discovered vs constructed.Except that's not really the job of linguistics. Semantic analysis of this sort falls under philosophy, not linguistics.
* Are good and evil, right and wrong objective? What are they based on?
A perfect example, insomuch as it is currently philosophy but slowly turning into sociobiology. Good and Evil are beginning to be understood in evolutionary terms. When they are, then we can leave ethics to the scientists.That's also false, but let's not go into that itt.
* What is the best way to lead one's life?
Sounds like psychology to me.Sure, psychology, especially positive psychology, may help us answer that question, but surely "the best way to lead one's life" is not a psychological term?

[lpetrich]

What kind of "science" might my OP's questions be?
* Is there an external world? Does anything other than oneself exist?
Physics.
That seems to me to beg the question, because it can be argued that all of physics is a description of a big hallucination.

* Do we directly perceive an external world? Or do we infer its existence from certain experiences that we have?
Isn't the act of perceiving something an experience? Anyway, neuroscience.
That's more-or-less correct -- we do not directly perceive it; we receive information about it from our various senses.

* What is the ontological status of abstract ideas? Of shared properties? Of emergent properties?
See, this is still philosophy, because there's nothing useful you can do with it yet. Except maybe math.
More question-begging.

* Are mathematical concepts discovered or constructed?
Linguistics, as in figuring out what you mean by discovered vs constructed.
Letting analysis of language substitute for analysis of what is described by language is a common disease of philosophers.

* Can mind exist without a material substrate?
This question has already been definitively settled. It's called "medicine."
If one accepts the existence of the external world, that is the most likely conclusion.

* Are good and evil, right and wrong objective? What are they based on?
A perfect example, insomuch as it is currently philosophy but slowly turning into sociobiology. Good and Evil are beginning to be understood in evolutionary terms. When they are, then we can leave ethics to the scientists.
That seems like a stretch to me.

* What is the best way to lead one's life?
Sounds like psychology to me.
I agree that that's more-or-less applied psychology.

[Preno]

* Are mathematical concepts discovered or constructed?
Linguistics, as in figuring out what you mean by discovered vs constructed.Letting analysis of language substitute for analysis of what is described by language is a common disease of philosophers.Really? Don't you think that it's necessary to first clarify the meaning of a question (which, however, is not the domain of linguistics) before answering it?

[Alex]

* Are good and evil, right and wrong objective? What are they based on?
A perfect example, insomuch as it is currently philosophy but slowly turning into sociobiology. Good and Evil are beginning to be understood in evolutionary terms. When they are, then we can leave ethics to the scientists.


If our normative views can be scientifically explained, how can they be justified as true?

[Yahzi]

If one accepts the existence of the external world, that is the most likely conclusion.
Ah. Over in the "Yahzi's Patented Baseball Bat Test," I provide a wonderful little philosophical argument for the existence of the external world. I invite you to apply it yourself, with all due vigor. :D

[Yahzi]

If our normative views can be scientifically explained, how can they be justified as true?
I'm not sure what you mean here.

Our normative views are scientifically explained as natural products of evolution. As such, they are true for us; other species, with other evolutionary pressures and responses, may well have other ethics.

To put it another way: there are no absolute morals, but there are objective morals for any given species capable of morality.

[Alex]

If our normative views can be scientifically explained, how can they be justified as true?
I'm not sure what you mean here.

Our normative views are scientifically explained as natural products of evolution. As such, they are true for us; other species, with other evolutionary pressures and responses, may well have other ethics.

To put it another way: there are no absolute morals, but there are objective morals for any given species capable of morality.
Throw a piece of iron into deep water and it will sink. But there's a scientific explanation for the buoyancy of an iron ship on the ocean. The principles involved are empirically verifiable and true independently of human wishes.

If there's a scientific explanation of, let's say, why perjury is wrong, it's not true in the same sense as the above. In which case, is it true that there's really a "scientific explanation" for our disapproval of perjury? Isn't it better described as an opinion that might have evolved because of its social utility?

Perhaps you can give a definition of what you mean by a "scientific explanation" that's elastic enough to include an explanation of the origin of virtue.

[Yahzi]

In which case, is it true that there's really a "scientific explanation" for our disapproval of perjury? Isn't it better described as an opinion that might have evolved because of its social utility?
I don't understand the difference between those two statements.

If you demonstrate that disapproval of perjury is an evolutionarily successful strategy, and show how it arose in a population due to certain environmental constraints, allowing that population to dominate resources better than an opposing population and thus survive where the other failed, haven't you just given a scientific explanation for disapproval of perjury?
:dunno:

[Rie]

I love argueing anything to death- would that make me a good philosopher?
I've been thinking that Philosophy means 'love of sophistry'- that can't be right.
If you DEFINE the thing you are moralising about it helps a lot.

[Haswell]

In the "History of Science" by John Gribbin, he opined that all early 'science' was philosophy because it did not conduct experiments. Is that the difference?

My only problem with philosophy is that I don't understand much of it. Even to the point of being baffled by some of the thread titles. Whatever happened to reality?

[Ray Moscow]

* Are good and evil, right and wrong objective? What are they based on?
A perfect example, insomuch as it is currently philosophy but slowly turning into sociobiology. Good and Evil are beginning to be understood in evolutionary terms. When they are, then we can leave ethics to the scientists.


If our normative views can be scientifically explained, how can they be justified as true?

Hmmm ... I don't think we can argue what should happen, ethically, from how things happen to be.

For example, we might feel violent or extremely selfish tendencies as part of our evolutionary heritage, but that doesn't mean that these impulses should rule society. It might well be morally better to restrict the expression of these -- in fact, that's what we do, most of the time.

We might try to train ourselves and our children to strengthen "positive" impulses and control "negative" ones, as in fact we do. How we value these impulses might be dictated by tradition (a mixed bag), religion (generally wronghead) or by their consequences -- what effect on suffering they might have -- which is at least an attempt to be rational.

[Alex]

If you demonstrate that disapproval of perjury is an evolutionarily successful strategy, and show how it arose in a population due to certain environmental constraints, allowing that population to dominate resources better than an opposing population and thus survive where the other failed, haven't you just given a scientific explanation for disapproval of perjury?
:dunno:

The difference - which I tried to clarify in my example of how buoyancy can be explained on scientific principles - is that moral imperatives are not "discovered" by the same procedures that are used to establish matters of fact.

I agree with you that the law against perjury is among the successful strategies for coping with certain environmental constraints. What I don't understand is how you could demonstrate that by empirical inquiry. You could conceive of a society without a law against perjury.

It seems to me that far from being understood as the result of an empirical study, our explanation of the origin of virtue is a rationalization of a social animal's propensity to be governed by particular rules. This happens to be the case, but it's not inevitable and can't be measured like the speed of light in a vacuum.

[Yahzi]

You could conceive of a society without a law against perjury.
Not a human society. Not one that actually functioned.

There is an old idea that man is a blank slate; that culture and mores are products entirely of culture. This is not true.

Human beings are animals. The study of morality is fundamentally no different than the study of nesting patterns of tufted warblers.

[Yahzi]

Hmmm ... I don't think we can argue what should happen, ethically, from how things happen to be.
What else could we possibly argue from? We argue from what human beings actually are: that is, how they happen to be.

For example, we might feel violent or extremely selfish tendencies as part of our evolutionary heritage, but that doesn't mean that these impulses should rule society. It might well be morally better to restrict the expression of these -- in fact, that's what we do, most of the time.
Why is it morally better? Why, because not restricting those tendencies produces dysfunctional cultures. Which then die. Which is not particularly effective as an evolutionary strategy.

On the other hand, removing all ability to feel violent or selfish is probably equally destructive to evolutionary fitness.

[Alex]

You could conceive of a society without a law against perjury.
Not a human society. Not one that actually functioned.

Perjury or lying under oath is inseparable from the idea of a civil or criminal court of law. A "primitive" or pre-civil society may not have developed this concept and could conceivably function without it. But maybe that's a side issue in this conversation, for the time being.


There is an old idea that man is a blank slate; that culture and mores are products entirely of culture. This is not true.
Why do you think it isn't true that morality is entirely a cultural product?

Human beings are animals. The study of morality is fundamentally no different than the study of nesting patterns of tufted warblers.
Unless there's an equivocation on "fundamentally", I don't understand this. What are your reasons for asserting that the study of morality is no different from the study of something like a bird's nesting habits? I don't see the necessary correspondences. You've made similar assertions before. Now I'm asking for your analysis rather than a mere statement of opinion.

[Ray Moscow]

Hmmm ... I don't think we can argue what should happen, ethically, from how things happen to be.
What else could we possibly argue from? We argue from what human beings actually are: that is, how they happen to be.

For example, we might feel violent or extremely selfish tendencies as part of our evolutionary heritage, but that doesn't mean that these impulses should rule society. It might well be morally better to restrict the expression of these -- in fact, that's what we do, most of the time.
Why is it morally better? Why, because not restricting those tendencies produces dysfunctional cultures. Which then die. Which is not particularly effective as an evolutionary strategy.

On the other hand, removing all ability to feel violent or selfish is probably equally destructive to evolutionary fitness.

It's morally better because it's more likely to result in outcomes that we value than other approaches.

For example, I value living in a peaceful neighbourhood without much danger or conflict. There's nothing making it "better" than other alternatives -- such as a high crime or violent neighbourhood -- except my and my neighbours' preference for that or something similar.

Most of these values involve keeping suffering at a minimum and (usually to a lesser extent) pleasure at a maximum for myself and others.

[Blueskyboris]

Part of the problem is a question of definition. What counts as philosophy?

We could address that by considering a lot of questions and problems and then asking whether they belong in something or other that may be called "philosophy".

Part of the problem is that what we now call "science" used to be called "natural philosophy"; rigorous and well-defined branches of "philosophy" tend to be called "science".

A line between philosophy and science can be difficult to draw, and on the opposite side, a line between philosophy and theology can also be difficult to draw.

Here's a partial list:


Is there an external world? Does anything other than oneself exist?
Do we directly perceive an external world? Or do we infer its existence from certain experiences that we have?
What is the ontological status of abstract ideas? Of shared properties? Of emergent properties?
Are mathematical concepts discovered or constructed?
Can mind exist without a material substrate?
Are good and evil, right and wrong objective? What are they based on?
What is the best way to lead one's life?


One can easily think of more, and it must be said that these are very different kinds of questions. It will be a monumental day when you jokers catch up with me on this subject.

[lpetrich]

It will be a monumental day when you jokers catch up with me on this subject.
How is that supposed to be the case?

[Blueskyboris]

There are no boundaries between the two. You already answered your own question. There are only boundaries between the different philosophical disciplines, which includes the sciences.

[Yahzi]

Perjury or lying under oath is inseparable from the idea of a civil or criminal court of law. A "primitive" or pre-civil society may not have developed this concept and could conceivably function without it.
Your conceptions seem very narrowly defined. To me, when a tribesman says, "I swear by the river-god will give you a goat in three moons if you give me a chicken now," he is making an oath. If he is lying, then he is lying under oath.

I would not even confine perjury to a legalistic definition. If somebody asks you what someone else did or said, and you swear you're telling the truth, and you're not, then that's perjury, even if there isn't a jury around.

I agree it is a side issue; I only bring it up to show that my definitions are not quite so narrow.

Why do you think it isn't true that morality is entirely a cultural product?
Because monkeys have morality. Also, history.

What are your reasons for asserting that the study of morality is no different from the study of something like a bird's nesting habits?
I confess I don't see the confusion.

Morality is an evolutionary mechanism, a product of the evolutionary arms race between genes. So is nesting behavior. They are both learned behaviors enabled by specific brain configurations (by learned I include trial and error, not just being shown by others, and I assume birds go through some trial and error process while making nests; but if not, feel free to substitute any other innate yet refined behavior - like bird songs).

Some moralities/nesting behaviors work better than others. Species adapt their morality/nesting behavior according to environmental pressures and the needs/limitations/abilities of the species. A scientific study of morality/nesting behavior can lead to insights on how to improve morality/nesting behavior's ability to lead to desired outcomes.

Now you might think that teaching new nesting behavior to birds is a fools errand, but I'm here to tell you it's not much harder than teaching religious nutters morality. :D Sometimes it just takes a few generations.

[Yahzi]

There's nothing making it "better" than other alternatives
You could argue that it is "better" because it leads to more of your genes surviving.

Really, it's OK to say that the purpose of life is to live, and that anything that promotes that purpose is therefore, from the point of view of that living creature, objectively "better." This is a built-in ontological position that comes free of charge, included in the definition of "being alive."

[Barleyman]

The biggest problem with philosophy is overcoming mankinds natural urge to group or herd IMHO. Nietzsche tried but I don't think philosophy really has moved on much since the po mo days. It's now all analytical nonsense, and how do we define define and how do we define how, what is how, who is language where is my washboard? What is where where is how, who is what in the where why? Kinda pointless; this seems fine at a superficial level - we do indeed to refine language - but it's nothing more than stupid at answering anything "real" and it tends to lead to ever decreasing circular circularity.

I think the moment we learn to think for ourselves we become philosophers, just regurgitating past heroes is nothing worthy of anyone's time. I've killed Nietzsche, and spanked Camus and Sartre. :p

Oh and I punched Wiggtenstein in the face and called him a cunt. You know what he said? "What is a cunt?"

I said you are and Bertrand Russel opined that he was indeed a cunt.

[Blueskyboris]

I concur. :bang:

[Yahzi]

The biggest problem with philosophy is overcoming mankinds natural urge to group or herd IMHO. Nietzsche tried
Are you complaining that philosophers, as a class, tend to support the status quo? Or are you complaining that not enough philosophy is dedicated to justifying the rights of the few to mistreat the many?

Because the former isn't true, and the latter isn't useful.

po mo
You should be thrilled with po mo. It rejected the conventions of common sense and reason, and upheld the primacy of individual's personal idiosyncratic views over all reason and history.

analytical nonsense,
A lot of the obsession with definitions went away with the invention of neural networks. Turns out definition is just a math trick.

I think the moment we learn to think for ourselves we become philosophers,
I agree; philosophy is the spirit of inquiry. Though perhaps with less swear words. :D

[Rie]

But doesn't the word itself mean a seeking for the truth of the meaning of things, esp. existence and the rules governing it?

[Barleyman]

But doesn't the word itself mean a seeking for the truth of the meaning of things, esp. existence and the rules governing it?

The word is the tool by which we apply reason, it is however not reason itself it is merely work done where reason is the basic energy.

Reliance on etiology and epistemology is fine up to a point but overemphasising the need for strict logical formalism in everything is kind of pointless and needlessly restrictive if all you are doing is semantically determining that the word fuck does indeed denote sex and a swear word.

Too much time is spent pondering the meaning of the word meaning and not enough time is spent trying to answer real issues it seems, aside from Dennett and a few others it strikes me that Universities are now too often only teaching people what to think and not how and indeed why we think like we do, ie consciousness issues.

You should be thrilled with po mo. It rejected the conventions of common sense and reason, and upheld the primacy of individual's personal idiosyncratic views over all reason and history.Post moderinism was really only a form of luddite anti science thinking and is if you ask me dead and deservedly so.

There is no point in rejecting everything but the individuals point of view, subjectivism is fine up to a point but if everyone thinks you are an idiot because everything you say is nonsense I don't think you're going to advance philosophy at all.

Nietzsche had the right idea I think, but even moral nihilism is a means to an end. The will to be better is a good philosophy if you ask me and it doesn't rely on scripture or sermonised dogma.

[Rie]

But surely philosophy must contain that element of 'love' in it.... human beings who FEEL it in them that need to define the parameters of evistence?
And non-existence. I would not even call a person who didn't wonder at the universe, how it all started and WHERE do we go after life as we've known it, a truly passionate philosopher

[Yahzi]

But surely philosophy must contain that element of 'love' in it....
Only love of knowledge.