• Philosophy and Spirituality
    Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Threads of Note Socialize
  • P&S Moderators: Xorkoth | Madness

What is the value of philosophy?

Heuristic

Heuristic

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Mar 26, 2009
Messages
3,263
Or is there any value at all? Why do we pay people to be professors of philosophy? Is this a wise use of resources?
 
if we don't have specialists looking into these kinds of subjects, we wouldn't have as much focus or direction when we naturally think about such things. in the long run, even if the search is an exercise in futility, it actually saves resources.

i think


stop picking fights, mister heury lewis and the nooz :p
 
Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.
Click to expand...
-Bertrand Russell
 
^other then that, none whatsoever.

philosophy doesn't seek outside itself, rather, it expands itself, in its ultimate movement, to everything, yet itself it remains nothing; for it is not defined outside itself.
 
Well any provable reality that philosophy once has jurisdiction over has since been converted into the sciences: natural and social sciences.
Now it's like a corollary to the sciences, giving context and meaning to the empirical findings of the researchers.

But to be frank I don't really know much of a sense of it other than never ending rhetorical battles. My uncle is a professor of philosophy at University of Cincinnati and it seems like all that job is is an excuse to take month long vacations to Greece and Italy while his assistants teach the classes. Nice gig.
 
Passes the time between all out wars
 
Hmm... this is kind of like asking why do we pay people to be professors and curators of art. Or experts in music. I think philosophy is in equal measures an art, a game, and a tool, which is an important and intractable part of the human experience on every level (individual and society). To lose it would entail a major loss of civilization itself (and indeed, historically has).

Philosophy is an art in that it challenges one to put ideas of all sorts into WORDS which evoke the same feeling, when read, as the wordless experience of the idea described therein. It rewards wordings that are emotionally striking and memorable, as well as light-shedding.

Philosophy is a game in that it drives people to compete to make the wisest statements on a given subject. It's as good exercise for the mind as a sport is for the body. I'm not formally schooled in the Western academic philosophical tradition at all. I'm a bit of a street philosopher with a lot of homespun ideas. But my experience in this forum has given me some mental training that I've been able to take with me to institutions of higher learning.

Philosophy is a tool in that it uses ideas, in the form of language, to build, maintain, and rebuild the foundations of people's views of their place in the world, and their orientation of their lives individually and collectively. I know I can profoundly alter how motivated I am, and WHAT motivates me, based on what philosophical reading I've been doing recently.
 
So it's all about finding self expression for you?
 
Impacto, I'm just stimulating a discussion.

Bertrand Russell, well you would say it's valuable. But does it really enlarge our sense of possibility? Great inventions and scientific insights don't seem to derive from philosophy, and for that reason we don't give scientists or engineers much philosophical training.

MDAO, okay, but when is the last time you looked for psychological insight or wisdom in an academic journal of philosophy?
 
^ Believe it or not, I've given that method a fair go :)

Gotta admit, though, folk philosophizing, with ordinary people who don't get paid to do it, serves that need better 9 times out of 10, at least for me.

I get the sense that academic philosophy produces a critical mass of people who rise to the microphone of public intellectualism, and who by their good people skills and savvy to current trends in the world, are able to hand a string of de-jargoned wise statements on the state of the world to the general public, each one the distilled product of many other less socially graced or camera hungry academic philosophers working behind the scenes, as it were. Whether or not these spokespeople and their messages influence people's actions on a wide scale, or whether the causation goes only the other way, is a bit of a philosophical conundrum :)

Why does philosophy have to be useful to scientists and engineers to have value? Plus, I don't think I quite agree about them not getting any training in philosophy. When they learn about the scientific method and how to apply it in designing experiments and interpreting the results, they're learning the undisputed jewel of wisdom contained in the philosophy of science. They certainly learn those philosophical elements that have practical relevance to what they do.
 
If we didn't have philosophy we would have been stuck with religion....and where would we be today? Still in the dark ages.
 
Philosophy gives perspective on civilisations effect on man.

It regulates the implications of technology and economic growth, and makes it human, or at least mediates between the two.
 
1.) I make zero distinction between philosophy and everyday rationalization. Ask someone why they believe a book is right in front of their face, and they'll probably say: Because I can see and touch it. Boom--epistemology. Right there. Like a prof of mine once said, everyone's a philosopher.

2.) A challenging philosophy forces you to reconsider why you believe what you believe. Perhaps it weakens your previous stance, or strengthens it by making you build a coherent defense.

3.) Philosophy is a flavor of thought. I like many different flavors; I like many different philosophies. QED. ;)

4.) Really, liking philosophy is a lot like liking fiction. Fiction is, when you get down to it, bullshit. Yet, a good novel or short story can change your life, can shatter your dreams or create new ones, can give you some insight into human nature or reality you never before considered. All as a result of people who (typically) never existed, and of events that never occurred (and often, never will).
 
I used to ask myself a similar question when I was in college, not about philosophy per se but about liberal arts in general. I wondered why, as a engineering/chemistry student do I have to spend so much time on this other stuff that is not going to help me?

Much of it never did.

But in retrospect, philosophy. I don't see how it could not have real value. In any field, but maybe to some ironic, but in my opinion the physical sciences more than anything else.

I think modern education should have more philosophy. Much more.

First of all, general philosophy, the application of critical reasoning to even unanswerable questions, how can that really not be beneficial?

And then I think various disciplines in their later curriculum should require a very in depth and formal, detailed study of their appropriate areas in a "philosophical/historical" perspective. Not pure philosophy maybe, but rather the more focused study of the great schools of thought in one's particular area, how they came about, how they continue to influence knowledge, and how some have in fact been abandoned (and even how those ideas also often continue to influence knowledge.

Every science has it's own particular area of "philosophy". But students get it mostly only piecemeal and anecdotally.

How is that we let our best and brightest go into, say, their senior year, a time when a young person really has to begin questioning what it is they are doing, and formulating their own identity, and we leave them mostly without any guidance? What else is so important to cram into a final year of study that we do not have time for a coherent and formal study of the appropriate "philosophy", something designed to at least attempt some consideration of the question of in addition to landing that dream job, have you ever considered also being inspired by what others have done, and you yourself also think about maybe you should also aspire to become a good or even great chemist, physicist, economist, whatever -ist it is based on something that is not material but more philosophical?

I believe our educational system began to fail years ago. At some point in time we gradually decided that it was more important to just acquire "knowledge" and less and less important to also struggle to acquire "wisdom". Now we are at the point where the logical digression is to devolve into acquiring information without acquiring "knowledge".

Philosophy is the solution to that failure.
 
Heuristic said:
Impacto, I'm just stimulating a discussion.

Bertrand Russell, well you would say it's valuable. But does it really enlarge our sense of possibility? Great inventions and scientific insights don't seem to derive from philosophy, and for that reason we don't give scientists or engineers much philosophical training.

MDAO, okay, but when is the last time you looked for psychological insight or wisdom in an academic journal of philosophy?
Click to expand...

Without philosophy you have nothing. Everything, once you reach a certain level of abstraction, is philosophy. Without philosophy all you have are unexamined assumptions. You certainly don't have good science without philosophy, since science is just philosophy with applied epistemology.

Every claim made in the sciences (no matter how 'hard' these sciences can successfully claim to be) has a philosophical basis. Every empirical observation rests on a whole host of ontological and epistemological assumptions which, if examined, lead to better science. Looking through a microscope I see an X having an effect on a Y. But what is an X? And what is a Y? Are they really what we thought they were? On what basis do we classify something as an X or a Y? And what is an effect? What is causation? Do X and Y still really exist after X has had an effect on Y? There are no empirical observations which do not address philosophical questions, and vice versa.

(Continental) philosophy is also the only thing that addresses the question of what is a good direction for society to go in or aim for. Economists want to increase utility. But what is utility? What is the utility of utility? What kind of human subject experiences utility? What is the human subject? All of these are philosophical questions and even if they don't realise it, economists are addressing them all the time. Engineers can build a bridge, and as time goes on will be able to build ever bigger and safer bridges. But why build a bridge? Where should we build it to? Should we cross it? What about the people on the other side of the bridge?

Without philosophy there is nothing. Certainly no science, and no reflection as to the nature of humanity and humanity's place in the world (after all, what is the world?)
 
There have been some great responses.

A few have suggested that we cannot avoid philosophy. To make any empirical, or any claim at all, is to invoke entire philosophical systems. To see a microbe by a microscope and ask what it is, is to ask a philosophical question. To say that I know this computer exists is to make a philosophical claim.

MDAO suggests that the scientific method is a result of philosophy, and that this has had obvious benefits.

And I agree that, once upon a time, philosophy did give birth to the sciences (once called natural philosophy), which have obvious utility. Philosophy these days doesn't produce any scientific research though. The sciences, once they developed into mature branches of thought, left philosophy. Questions like "what is X" in the Socratic sense don't have any place in science. We do teach scientists the scientific method, and perhaps they get a basic smattering of Popper, learn the name Ockham, and so forth, but that's it.

It's also true that any claim has epistemological or metaphysical implications, but these are either trivial or better relegated to the sciences. We don't need much philosophy in either case--and the questions for which we might need philosophy seem faintly ridiculous once one tracks them down.

Trivial: I know this computer exists because I'm sitting here typing at it.

Better relegated to the sciences: How do my senses interact with the world to get me this information?

Philosophical: But what if you were in some experience machine, or subject to an evil demon-god, who made you experience everything just as you do, except there actually isn't any computer or anything else?

Then there is moral philosophy, or ethics, which I agree is useful, but much of moral philosophy doesn't ask substantive ethical questions, but is concerned with very abstruse meta-ethical questions of distant relation to our actual concerns about actions and values.
 
Heuristic said:
And I agree that, once upon a time, philosophy did give birth to the sciences (once called natural philosophy), which have obvious utility. Philosophy these days doesn't produce any scientific research though. The sciences, once they developed into mature branches of thought, left philosophy. Questions like "what is X" in the Socratic sense don't have any place in science. We do teach scientists the scientific method, and perhaps they get a basic smattering of Popper, learn the name Ockham, and so forth, but that's it.
Click to expand...

There you go again taking it a priori that science has subsumed all inquiry. 8o
That in and of itself is a philosophical assumption. I'm not out to convince you it's not a philosophical position without a lot going for it. Though I personally don't subscribe to it, as a man of science I encounter it frequently in people I work with and highly respect. It's been well defended and is quite popular. But like all philosophical positions, as useful, beautiful, or deftly constructed as it might be, it's based ultimately on assumptions that cannot be proven, and as such, it just logically follows that there will always be people who will build their worldviews on wholly different philosophical assumptions.

satricion said:
Without philosophy you have nothing. Everything, once you reach a certain level of abstraction, is philosophy. Without philosophy all you have are unexamined assumptions. You certainly don't have good science without philosophy, since science is just philosophy with applied epistemology.

Every claim made in the sciences (no matter how 'hard' these sciences can successfully claim to be) has a philosophical basis. Every empirical observation rests on a whole host of ontological and epistemological assumptions which, if examined, lead to better science. Looking through a microscope I see an X having an effect on a Y. But what is an X? And what is a Y? Are they really what we thought they were? On what basis do we classify something as an X or a Y? And what is an effect? What is causation? Do X and Y still really exist after X has had an effect on Y? There are no empirical observations which do not address philosophical questions, and vice versa.

(Continental) philosophy is also the only thing that addresses the question of what is a good direction for society to go in or aim for. Economists want to increase utility. But what is utility? What is the utility of utility? What kind of human subject experiences utility? What is the human subject? All of these are philosophical questions and even if they don't realise it, economists are addressing them all the time. Engineers can build a bridge, and as time goes on will be able to build ever bigger and safer bridges. But why build a bridge? Where should we build it to? Should we cross it? What about the people on the other side of the bridge?

Without philosophy there is nothing. Certainly no science, and no reflection as to the nature of humanity and humanity's place in the world (after all, what is the world?)
Click to expand...

I agree with this post entirely. Beautifully put.

I think this is something of a 'having only a hammer and seeing only nails' kind of issue. I had a college roommate who was an economics major. He had a great argument for 'Everything is economics', in that any entity or process could be modeled as flows of resources. When I later took chemistry, I heard a similar argument for everything being chemistry. To those who take the search for wisdom in verbal form as their quest, everything is philosophy. It's all relative to where you stand and what your needs are in this world.

But that's just my philosophy. %)
 
Heuristic said:
And I agree that, once upon a time, philosophy did give birth to the sciences (once called natural philosophy), which have obvious utility. Philosophy these days doesn't produce any scientific research though. The sciences, once they developed into mature branches of thought, left philosophy. Questions like "what is X" in the Socratic sense don't have any place in science. We do teach scientists the scientific method, and perhaps they get a basic smattering of Popper, learn the name Ockham, and so forth, but that's it.
Click to expand...

And is this ignorance of philosophy a good thing or an argument against the importance of philosophy? There is more to the philosophy of science than positivism and Karl Popper you know. Maybe they should be learning Kuhn? Lakatos? Feyerabend? Most science students will never hear these names, which is a shame given that these were all professional philosophers who believed in the importance of the scientific enterprise and had some extremely important things to say about how it should be done.

It's also true that any claim has epistemological or metaphysical implications, but these are either trivial or better relegated to the sciences. We don't need much philosophy in either case--and the questions for which we might need philosophy seem faintly ridiculous once one tracks them down.

Trivial: I know this computer exists because I'm sitting here typing at it.

Better relegated to the sciences: How do my senses interact with the world to get me this information?

Philosophical: But what if you were in some experience machine, or subject to an evil demon-god, who made you experience everything just as you do, except there actually isn't any computer or anything else?
Click to expand...

This is an obvious caricature of philosophy more reminiscent of first year undergraduate introductions to the nature of the philosophical enterprise than any serious contemporary thinker or line of inquiry.

Then there is moral philosophy, or ethics, which I agree is useful, but much of moral philosophy doesn't ask substantive ethical questions, but is concerned with very abstruse meta-ethical questions of distant relation to our actual concerns about actions and values.
Click to expand...

Um, what? Peter Singer? Hannah Arendt? Untold other contemporary academics in universities all over the world? Aren't war, the holocaust, abortion or euthanasia substantive issues with an ethical dimension? Besides which, the "abstruse meta-ethical questions" which other thinkers are dealing with provide the frameworks and debates that other philosophers which deal with contemporary issues are drawing on for their own studies. All disciplines have divisions of labour with people working at various levels of abstraction, and everything from the tiny painstaking empirical groundwork through to the metatheoretical work at the highest levels of abstraction is necessary for a healthy discipline. For example: I read Deleuze (a continental philosopher of the highest level of abstraction) so that I can rework aspects of Bourdieu (a "mid range" sociological theorist who also did empirical work on class processes in education amongst other things) in order to understand elements of the experience of homelessness in contemporary young people (a pressing social issue with obvious "real world" implications).

Ultimately you're not arguing against philosophy per se, you're arguing against a caricature of philosophy and its institutionalisation as a separate discipline in universities. With regards to the institutionalisation issue, at a certain level of abstraction disciplinary boundaries become arbitrary (the line between sociology, anthropology, and political science comes to mind here). But each institutionalised discipline reflects a distinct and fruitful, living tradition of inquiry. Philosophers deal with certain questions in certain ways, and nobody else does exactly what they do. No, they are not chemists or physicists or political scientists, but that's fine because they're dealing with questions that none of the members of those disciplines are able to contribute to.

But really, philosophy doesn't need to have some kind of instrumental reason for existing. The fact that you don't think it's useful, or that contemporary philosophers don't get cited in economics papers or government reports, is irrelevant. Getting rid of contexts in which critical thought for its own sake is valued and encouraged can only be bad for society.

ps: You've forgotten social theory, political philosophy, analytical philosophy, and philosophy of mind to name a few.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top