What is the value of philosophy?

[azzazza !?]

i stopped replying to questions about the usefulness of philosophy. which might be a shame, upon seeing some beautiful answers given here.

but people that ask this question don't have 'the feel' for it, and in my experience, they never get it. its in the nature of the question itself: usefulness. means to an end. everything is means to an end which is in itself a mean to another end, and so on. you don't stop. you don't distance yourself from what you are doing, you're doing and strictly speaking, without any philosophy, this constitutes cancerous growth. philosophy is THE end. its about stepping outside of the machine, and take a look at why are we doing this, and where it is going, and where should it be going? to do just that, you need to end it for yourself. you escape what you are doing through death for you. in Heideggers words; nobody can die your death for you. it is the locus of your ultimate freedom, and therefor, your ultimate responsability as well.

philosophy is no 'means to an end', it is an end in itself. and in the deep end, philosophy ultimately is about the end of all ends. death. the end of all time. the end of the world. the end of your world.

 

[Heuristic]

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?

Yes but they can be, and frequently are, excellent scientists WITHOUT having read the Open Society, the Republic of Science, the Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and so forth. Is it good for them to read those authors? Sure. I think they're beautiful arguments, and enjoyable. I also think they should take the time to read Shakespeare, Melville, and Charles Simic. Maybe watch 30 Rock. Meditate.

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.

Actually it's borne out if you browse through the table of contents of many major philosophical journals. Indeed, in the most recent issue of Analysis there is an entire article devoted entirely to the global skepticism argument which I described.

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?

I said MANY, not ALL. I can certainly think of some who do engage, usefully, with substantive ethical questions, but that's a pretty small corner of philosophy.

Regarding war, or abortion, has there been a lot of progress on the philosophical front on those issues?

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.

They deal with frameworks that never seem to determine how anyone answers substantive ethical questions, and are frequently concerned with very fine linguistic distinctions that ultimately make no difference to actual arguments. Indeed, if anything, meta-ethics has tended to confuse the discussion, and knowledge of meta-ethical issues as discussed in academic circles is entirely unnecessary to understanding arguments about substantive ethical questions.

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.

I'm raising the question, since I think it's a useful one. I have no conclusion on it.

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.

That's not really a satisfying answer though. You've stated:

(1) Philosophy is an institutionalized discipline.
(2) All institutionalized disciplines reflect fruitful inquiry.
(3) Philosophy is a fruitful line of inquiry.

Begs the question, really.

And philosophers frequently draw upon other disciplines to answer questions. Indeed, I find philosophy to be more reflective of the state of knowledge in other disciplines, and reactionary to them, than anything else.

I've also never found that philosophers are particularly better at thinking about philosophical questions than talented people in other disciplines.

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.

You begin by stating that we don't need an instrumental reason, but conclude your paragraph with an instrumental reason, and offer nothing in between.

In any case, I would hope that we encourage critical thought in every context. We don't need academic departments of philosophy for there to be critical thought.

There you go again taking it a priori that science has subsumed all inquiry.
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.

Fair enough. What knowledge has philosophy produced in the last 20 years?

I think this is something of a 'having only a hammer and seeing only nails' kind of issue. [...] 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. %)

I'd completely agree with that philosophy, and so would William James.

But do I need to pay a tenured professor to teach a couple of graduate seminars on Carnap's theory of syntax for this?

i stopped replying to questions about the usefulness of philosophy. which might be a shame, upon seeing some beautiful answers given here.

but people that ask this question don't have 'the feel' for it, and in my experience, they never get it.

The institution of academic philosophy isn't immune to critical thought or evaluation. Nor should it be.

its in the nature of the question itself: usefulness. means to an end. everything is means to an end which is in itself a mean to another end, and so on. you don't stop. you don't distance yourself from what you are doing, you're doing and strictly speaking, without any philosophy, this constitutes cancerous growth. philosophy is THE end. its about stepping outside of the machine, and take a look at why are we doing this, and where it is going, and where should it be going? to do just that, you need to end it for yourself. you escape what you are doing through death for you. in Heideggers words; nobody can die your death for you. it is the locus of your ultimate freedom, and therefor, your ultimate responsability as well.

I don't think means and ends are mutually exclusive categories, and that the assumption that they are accounts for a lot of bad... philosophy concerning them, but leaving that aside and assuming the truth of your paragraph, why should we pay professors of philosophy to achieve this for themselves?

 

[azzazza !?]

^the philosophers already do this. they're naturals at it. you already do this as well. though to much lesser degree then a professor in philosophy.

when you talk about critical assessment in the light of an evaluation of the institution of academic philosophy, you are talking about values. you are talking about your values. you are thinking in terms of usefulness. calculus. input and output. the human machine. what is the use of it for you? nothing at all. philosophy does not fit this category. nor does art, for instance. or religion. you can say lots of things about the use of these fields, but you won't get to the heart of the field. the why of the people that do find value in it? why is that? Because of the value you already assume in your question itself. and so you will not understand. you have barred that off a priori. the value system you are implying in your question is one of calculus. the scientific means to an end. this is the value of science in itself. fields like science, philosophy or art all have a completely different 'heart' or value in themselves. they are irreducable to each other; even though every field does this one way or another, like in MDAO's examples of 'everything is chemistry' etc. this is in the word evaluation. the question you have to ask is: in light of which value? when everything is economic value, of course everything that is not economic will be valueless. to you

it takes a certain kind of death to even come to an idea behind an other value system. you have to make room for an other. then its heart can show you from its otherness. it remains the question whether you can ever truly comprehend the very heart of another field. since you'd have to be it. though you may certainly gain elaborate notions, depending on the amount of room you can make for it. this 'room' is 'tacid knowledge'.
(i know you will probably not like the type of language im using about 'hearts' and 'death' and confusing the meaning of 'ends', but trust me, that is on purpose. i could adapt my language to the vlue you have assumed, but that won't get you one step closer to understanding, if that is what you wish to do)

 

[Heuristic]

^ You've hinted that the value in philosophy is that which is presupposed by asking whether philosophy has value.

Why not be explicit? What value are you talking about?

 

[azzazza !?]

its tacid knowledge. what is the value of art for an artist? art is him, he is art. now imagine him asking a scientist: "what is the value of science?" do you think there is anything the scientist can say to make the artist understand what 'science' truly means for a scientist? the scientist can talk all day about the science behind microwave ovens that make life easier and planes flying you everywhere. but at the end of the day, will the artist understand anything about what value science itself has for the scientist? lets draw it sharper: suppose he is one of those back to nature hippies; do you think there is anything he could say to convince the artist of the value of science?

i will not delve into the overlapping area of value as defined by say the scientific/economic field. many have already expressed some of these beautifully in this thread. but, these are always ultimately, as i tried to show in the above, of a peripheral nature. if i had to describe this heart somehow (for philosophy), it reminds me of being a kid and playing with lego. you have all kinds of building blocks to make all kinds of fancy buildings. and then there even are some very interesting blocks that can be used for various different purposes, across different buildings or even perform 3 or 4 or 7 functions, all from this one place in one building! the verb 'being' is such a word, for instance. there is a certain non-linearity in language and meaning. these crossroads are highly interesting. then we make all kinds of beautiful castles in the clouds, and we go defend this one and assault another. though we can never destroy one. our attacks only end up beautifying it because the defenders are building it ever stronger and more beautiful for themselves.
Heidegger once said this very beautifully: "Language is the house of Being."

now i ask you; what is the value of being, or watching, a child at play?

 

[satricion]

Yes but they can be, and frequently are, excellent scientists WITHOUT having read the Open Society, the Republic of Science, the Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and so forth. Is it good for them to read those authors? Sure. I think they're beautiful arguments, and enjoyable. I also think they should take the time to read Shakespeare, Melville, and Charles Simic. Maybe watch 30 Rock. Meditate.

Yep. I'm not sure why this would be an argument against the value of institutionalised philosophy, but I doubt anyone would disagree with any of this. All I would add is that Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend are not just beautiful and enjoyable arguments, but important analyses of epistemology and the practice of science which can only improve scientific practice if taught to science students. And I'm pretty sure that they're more important for good scientific practice than 30 Rock.

Actually it's borne out if you browse through the table of contents of many major philosophical journals. Indeed, in the most recent issue of Analysis there is an entire article devoted entirely to the global skepticism argument which I described.

You are cherry picking one article which you happen to think is stupid and using it to demonstrate that "this is what philosophy does." Even if the problem you discuss is a useless one (and that isn't a foregone conclusion) it's still a straw man argument.

I said MANY, not ALL. I can certainly think of some who do engage, usefully, with substantive ethical questions, but that's a pretty small corner of philosophy.

If you want any of the big important philosophers, you need to have institutionalised philosophy as a whole. Those philosophers are the best of the best, the most creative and challenging thinkers that come out of institutionalised philosophy. But they are part of a discipline and wouldn't exist without it. The same goes for any discipline. If you want the best and brightest you have to have everyone else doing the groundwork and keeping the discipline going. That's what a discipline is. It's not just a few particularly bright sparks, it's a community and it needs to be institutionalised if it's to exist.

They deal with frameworks that never seem to determine how anyone answers substantive ethical questions, and are frequently concerned with very fine linguistic distinctions that ultimately make no difference to actual arguments. Indeed, if anything, meta-ethics has tended to confuse the discussion, and knowledge of meta-ethical issues as discussed in academic circles is entirely unnecessary to understanding arguments about substantive ethical questions.

Abstract meta theoretical issues are what constitute the state of a discipline. When people address 'on the ground problems' they draw on tacit assumptions which these meta theoreticians take up. If you don't want to read them then whatever, but it's still an important part of the discipline.

That's not really a satisfying answer though. You've stated:

(1) Philosophy is an institutionalized discipline.
(2) All institutionalized disciplines reflect fruitful inquiry.
(3) Philosophy is a fruitful line of inquiry.

Begs the question, really.

Yep pretty much. Good philosophical analysis! My argument only falls down if the second premise is false.

And philosophers frequently draw upon other disciplines to answer questions. Indeed, I find philosophy to be more reflective of the state of knowledge in other disciplines, and reactionary to them, than anything else.

Other disciplines also draw on philosophy. This is certainly true of sociology, anthropology, political science, geography, history, etc. Whilst I'm not familiar with disciplines like physics and chemistry, I'm sure there are important parallels between contemporary philosophy and the meta theoretical issues they're addressing.

You begin by stating that we don't need an instrumental reason, but conclude your paragraph with an instrumental reason, and offer nothing in between.

In any case, I would hope that we encourage critical thought in every context. We don't need academic departments of philosophy for there to be critical thought.

Well, when you ask what the value of philosophy is, there are two kinds of answers. The first is that it is intrinsically valuable because it is philosophy, which you could argue begs the question. The second is that there is a value in philosophy because it is good for things which are not, strictly speaking, philosophy in the traditional sense.

What I meant was that critical thought doesn't need to have an already defined instrumental purpose (ie, a "real world issue") in order to be valuable, but that it is important for addressing a wide variety of real world issues which contribute to having a good society. So this argument is of the second kind, but I'm saying that we don't need a specific issue in order for it to work as an argument.

But do I need to pay a tenured professor to teach a couple of graduate seminars on Carnap's theory of syntax for this?

Philosophy departments aren't the only place that critical thought happens. But Carnap was a pretty important contribution to this history of philosophy, and should be taught for what he contributed to more contemporary ideas, as well as for the importance of the arguments in themselves.

I don't think means and ends are mutually exclusive categories, and that the assumption that they are accounts for a lot of bad... philosophy concerning them, but leaving that aside and assuming the truth of your paragraph, why should we pay professors of philosophy to achieve this for themselves?

Because if we didn't pay professors, philosophy would disappear. And I suspect your own skills in arguing points would be much less sharp, whether or not you've had any formal philosophical education (which I suspect you have) because even if you hadn't, the characteristics of good arguments is a philosophical question, and reflection on this question has influenced all disciplines.

 

[construct]

I believe that philosophy can have practical value to humanity concerning questions of right or wrong. The philosophy of ethics is very fashionable these days; it has more pragmatic use to the general public than the heady, sometimes superfluous philosophy of academics. Since morality cannot be tested by the sciences it falls into the realm of pure philosophy. Examples: bioethics, environmental ethics, law, political philosophy etc.

On a pragmatic level, one can also relate this to other philosophical fields that can be useful to humanity, but because of their nature, are beyond scientific inquiry.


With all this said, I do realize philosophy's limitations in answering these questions.






I apologize if others in this thread have already described the above idea more succinctly than I.


edit: upon reading, apparently they have

 

[Heuristic]

Yep. I'm not sure why this would be an argument against the value of institutionalised philosophy, but I doubt anyone would disagree with any of this. All I would add is that Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend are not just beautiful and enjoyable arguments, but important analyses of epistemology and the practice of science which can only improve scientific practice if taught to science students. And I'm pretty sure that they're more important for good scientific practice than 30 Rock.

I'm not. The practice of science, and the actual resolution of scientific arguments, has almost nothing to do with how philosophers of science conceptualize and describe those arguments.

You are cherry picking one article which you happen to think is stupid and using it to demonstrate that "this is what philosophy does." Even if the problem you discuss is a useless one (and that isn't a foregone conclusion) it's still a straw man argument.

You claimed my description of philosophy was simply a caricature of what is introduced to first-year undergraduates. I disagreed, noted that any perusal of a major philosophical journal would furnish counterexamples, and, to make the point clear, selected a major philosophical journal and an article from the most recent issue. Like it or not, the issues I raised in what you called a caricature actually are a pretty good model for what philosophy does.

If you want any of the big important philosophers, you need to have institutionalised philosophy as a whole.

I don't need departments of philosophy everywhere to get arguments about animal rights, violin playing fetuses, or veils of ignorance. I simply need intelligent people thinking and writing about ethical issues, which doesn't require professors of philosophy.

Abstract meta theoretical issues are what constitute the state of a discipline. When people address 'on the ground problems' they draw on tacit assumptions which these meta theoreticians take up.

We all draw on tacit assumptions to say anything at all. That doesn't mean that all the assumptions are worth endless professional philosophical examination.

Other disciplines also draw on philosophy. This is certainly true of sociology, anthropology, political science, geography, history, etc.

Eh, not to any important respect, strictly imho. To the extent they do, the important work is done by theorists within the disciplines.

What I meant was that critical thought doesn't need to have an already defined instrumental purpose (ie, a "real world issue") in order to be valuable, but that it is important for addressing a wide variety of real world issues which contribute to having a good society. So this argument is of the second kind, but I'm saying that we don't need a specific issue in order for it to work as an argument.

Sure, and we can develop critical thought by addressing just about any argument, problem, or issue that requires it.

Because if we didn't pay professors, philosophy would disappear. And I suspect your own skills in arguing points would be much less sharp, whether or not you've had any formal philosophical education (which I suspect you have) because even if you hadn't, the characteristics of good arguments is a philosophical question, and reflection on this question has influenced all disciplines.

I don't think philosophy in its most useful pursuits can disappear, but I also don't believe we need professional philosophers for it to exist. We would still have arguments about ethics, but we would probably have fewer arguments about whether Frege's take on participle existential statements cause problems for Nozick's construction of skepticism.

 

[satricion]

I'm not. The practice of science, and the actual resolution of scientific arguments, has almost nothing to do with how philosophers of science conceptualize and describe those arguments.

Are you serious? I mean, for example, Feyerabend's argument against positivism and against Popper is essentially that they don't represent the true practicality and creativity of actual scientific practice. Feyerabend loves science, he thinks it's great and he thinks scientists are great and he makes his arguments with examples which come from big theoretical changes in physics. His problem is that the scientific method doesn't reflect the creativity of the scientists who actually do good science. So um I don't know what you're talking about here.

Eh, not to any important respect, strictly imho. To the extent they do, the important work is done by theorists within the disciplines.

Um, what? What books do you think those theorists are reading? Any contermporary social, political, or historical theorist is going to have read a fair whack of philosophy. A perfect example is Foucault (whatever you might think of him) who has had a huge influence on all of the disciplines I listed, and who was a philosopher whose major influences were also philosophers (Nietzsche and Heidegger as well as Canguilhem, a French historian and philosopher of science). David Harvey, one of the biggest names in geography at the moment, read Marx, who in turn was inspired by Hegel. Michael Hardt, one of the biggest names in political theory, gets his inspirations from Marx and Deleuze. Nietzsche, Heidegger, Canguilhem, Hegel, Marx, Deleuze, Foucault, geography, sociology, history, political science, all of these things are connected.

My favourite example, which I'm pretty sure I've used on BL before, is the following:

In Australia, a lot of Aboriginal people die in jail. In a landmark report on Aboriginal deaths in custody, there is a chapter on the way that processes of inequality are influenced by race and gender to produce emergent forms of marginalisation not reducible to either of these dimensions. This conceptualisation comes from fundamental insights of post colonial theory, which would not exist in the way it does without Foucault. Without institutionalised philosophy, no Foucault. Without Foucault, no post colonial theory. Without post colonial theory, no understanding of Aboriginal deaths in custody.

Examples like this are everywhere. Your argument seems to me to be motivated by a suspicion of academics working at high levels of abstraction more than anything else.

 

[azzazza !?]

Your argument seems to me to be motivated by a suspicion of academics working at high levels of abstraction more than anything else.

what are they doing up there??

i don't trust these geezers brabbeling in their secret language of trivialities. whatever it is, they're still eating and farting meat machines. they should do something useful! cut their funding, yes, yes!

 

[Pythagoras]

Philosophilia

'The unexamined life is not worth living'

- I'll assume you bright sparks know who to attribute this to.

The common curriculum for (Western) Philosophy contains sub-categories, methodological approaches and History (of ideas):
Ethics

Logic

Epistemology

Aesthetics

Philosophy of mind

Metaphysics

Political Philosophy

History and Historiography of thought (pre-Socratic, Ancient, scholastic, Renaissance, Modern, post-modern, contemporary)

The Philosophers (study of Kant, or Heraclitus) in isolation

The Philosophies (study of immaterialism, logical positivism) in isolation.

From its Greek roots as the primary subject (+ natural philosophy) its history in academe is one of continual bifurcation and hiving off, first natural philosophy (to science), Political philosophy (to Politics/IR etc), parts of Ethics (to sociology) leaving us with the trimmed down version taught today. The centrality of philosophy historically is found in the PhD system where one becomes a ‘doctor of philosophy’ in any of the humanities and arts.


First one must accept that education is an end in itself, rather than a means to (eg – build a career), thus the philosophical enterprise needs no economic justification. Philosophy in my country at least is held in very high regard as a degree as it demonstrates ability in reasoned argument, abstract thought, ability to present and defend ideas etc.


As far as contemporary relevance, Ethics, Metaphysics/Phil. Of science, epistemology, Political philosophy all have direct application on other subjects, or directly on society. Philosophy of religion holds a central position within the current Zeitgeist (Just look at bestseller lists). As current ethical models are made redundant through technological progression, philosophers are best placed to aid society through the moral maze.


Funding for philosophy is pretty dire, but undergrads and postgrads continue to engage with the subject at a fairly steady state, many go on to careers in publishing, PR, teaching, journalism, and yes, a tiny minority become University lecturers/Professors.


As for achievements: The dismissal of Communitarianism as a valid political philosophy, almost weekly adjudications on bioethics, the application of Metaphysics on a whole host of topics, the ‘thought space’ given to secular Humanists to work through their axioms, the application of semiotics/linguistics to slice through the sophistry of modern mass media...the list goes on.


My personal opinion is that philosophy 101 should be taught in schools (as in France), allowing all access to the dialectic that aids us in building up our belief system, or knocking it down.


Life would be so dull devoid of paradox, or the mind-gym that it meta-philosophy!


FIAT LUX

 

[Heuristic]

Are you serious? I mean, for example, Feyerabend's argument against positivism and against Popper is essentially that they don't represent the true practicality and creativity of actual scientific practice. Feyerabend loves science, he thinks it's great and he thinks scientists are great and he makes his arguments with examples which come from big theoretical changes in physics. His problem is that the scientific method doesn't reflect the creativity of the scientists who actually do good science. So um I don't know what you're talking about here.

You've just made my point. Those big theoretical changes happened even in the absence of any of Feyerabend's arguments which draw upon them. Scientists went on being creative and doing their work even if Popper may not have fully allowed for it.

Scientists don't look to philosophers for a playbook, and they don't cite rules from philosophers in resolving arguments.

Um, what? What books do you think those theorists are reading? Any contermporary social, political, or historical theorist is going to have read a fair whack of philosophy. [...]

Of course, as background. Do we need continuing academic journals on the subject? Nah.

My favourite example, which I'm pretty sure I've used on BL before, is the following:

In Australia, a lot of Aboriginal people die in jail. In a landmark report on Aboriginal deaths in custody, there is a chapter on the way that processes of inequality are influenced by race and gender to produce emergent forms of marginalisation not reducible to either of these dimensions. This conceptualisation comes from fundamental insights of post colonial theory, which would not exist in the way it does without Foucault. Without institutionalised philosophy, no Foucault. Without Foucault, no post colonial theory. Without post colonial theory, no understanding of Aboriginal deaths in custody.

And the insight is what? Aborigines are cared for less in jail because the custodial officers value them less? I don't think we needed Foucault for that one.

Examples like this are everywhere. Your argument seems to me to be motivated by a suspicion of academics working at high levels of abstraction more than anything else.

My argument is motivated by a familiarity with academia and with the frequent disconnection between what academics do, and think matters, and what matters in the rest of the world.

One can work at high levels of abstraction without touching academic philosophy. Most people do.

 

[Pythagoras]

I think we’re dealing here with the cognitive bias of ‘Déformation professionelle’, the inability to find value and relevance outside one’s own academic field. Epistemology and philosophy of mind do contribute to our tentative understanding of consciousness. Ethics encompasses more than morality, but contributes to notions of social justice, human rights models, Justice and legislation, wealth redistribution etc.

I really can’t discern whether your beef is with academic philosophy, or all the humanities, arts and social sciences? Just for clarification which departments or schools would you have removed from Universities if you had the power to decide???

 

[satricion]

You've just made my point. Those big theoretical changes happened even in the absence of any of Feyerabend's arguments which draw upon them. Scientists went on being creative and doing their work even if Popper may not have fully allowed for it.

You said "The practice of science, and the actual resolution of scientific arguments, has almost nothing to do with how philosophers of science conceptualize and describe those arguments." I said that what philosophers of science say has a lot of relevance to real scientific practice, which you can see if you pay any attention at all to any major contemporary philosophers of science. What Feyerabend points out is that what bears little relationship to real science is in fact the scientific method, which is totally unable to explain how science actually works. The point is that scientists are not taught any contemporary philosophy of science, and instead are taught a basic positivist fairytale. More philosophy might encourage more creativity, which could only be a good thing. Regardless, it's important to have philosophy of science so that we have some insight into how science and epistemology actually work. The fact that good science gets done regardless is irrelevant. The fact that more, better science would get done if these ideas were more widely disseminated isn't.

Of course, as background. Do we need continuing academic journals on the subject? Nah.

You can't have one without the other. Journals are the lifeblood of a discipline. I've already made this point and "nah" isn't an argument against it.

And the insight is what? Aborigines are cared for less in jail because the custodial officers value them less? I don't think we needed Foucault for that one.

Actually that isn't what the point is. Put in theoretical terms, the point is that heterogeneous discourses construct subject positions which result in emergent forms of marginalisation not reducible to the implications of any one discourse. This means that justice services need to tailor aspects of the way jails work and the services provided more specifically, and also need to make special allowances for different cultural practices which the justice system had absolutely no understanding of before this report. You can't say "we don't need Foucault for that" because guess what, we did (the benefit of hindsight gives a certain comfort...) We wouldn't have had that report (which has led to some important policy conversations in the Australian justice system) without the postcolonial theory which provided the perspective that at least some of the authors were arguing from. That is what theory does, it allows reexamination of unexamined premises and "common sense." You can't say we don't need theory to do that because theory (which always draws on institutionalised philosophy) is how that gets accomplished.



Anyway, this thread is pretty much exactly the same as every other discussion I've ever had with anyone who thinks philosophy is useless. Maybe I'll start a thread asking "What is the value of economics?" and argue that we should get rid of economics because people still buy and sell things without reading economics journals.

 

[Pythagoras]

I think we’re dealing here with the cognitive bias of ‘Déformation professionelle’, the inability to find value and relevance outside one’s own academic field. Epistemology and philosophy of mind do contribute to our tentative understanding of consciousness. Ethics encompasses more than morality, but contributes to notions of social justice, human rights models, Justice and legislation, wealth redistribution etc.

I really can’t discern whether your beef is with academic philosophy, or all the humanities, arts and social sciences? Just for clarification which departments or schools would you have removed from Universities if you had the power to decide???

I don’t usually quote myself but I think my last question is germane to the discussion. Is Heuristic positing a general objection to the academy of humanities, arts and social sciences, or is it just philosophy that as a distinct branch of learning, that he wants expunged from the Universities? It would be interesting for Heuristic to name some of the ‘worthy’ subjects, according to his estimations.

to reiterate - Just for clarification which departments or schools would you have removed from Universities if you had the power to decide???

 

[Heuristic]

What Feyerabend points out is that what bears little relationship to real science is in fact the scientific method, which is totally unable to explain how science actually works. The point is that scientists are not taught any contemporary philosophy of science, and instead are taught a basic positivist fairytale. More philosophy might encourage more creativity, which could only be a good thing. Regardless, it's important to have philosophy of science so that we have some insight into how science and epistemology actually work. The fact that good science gets done regardless is irrelevant. The fact that more, better science would get done if these ideas were more widely disseminated isn't.

Scientists learn by reading and doing the science. Given the amount of progress it's produced in a very short period of time, I'm not sure how you think it can improve. I certainly don't think teaching scientists about 90% of epistemology is going to improve anything.

But, let's have the discussion.

You can't have one without the other. Journals are the lifeblood of a discipline. I've already made this point and "nah" isn't an argument against it.

Remember that my question is as to whether these journals contribute anything useful to other disciplines. So while I agree, of course, that theorists in various disciplines have read a lot of philosophy, that does not establish that what is published today in philosophical journals continues to be relevant.

I think professors of philosophy would be far better focusing on teaching, and writing to a larger audience about more obviously topical issues. Some of today's philosophy fits into the latter category, but most of it does not.

Actually that isn't what the point is. Put in theoretical terms, the point is that heterogeneous discourses construct subject positions which result in emergent forms of marginalisation not reducible to the implications of any one discourse.

Which means that Aborigines are marginalized in ways that can be described in neither entirely racial nor entirely gendered terms. Or put differently, with less jargon, the combination of racial and gender bias and inequality produces a position of even less equality. What this means empirically is that Aborigines aren't treated as well in jail because they, and what they say, aren't valued in equality to inmates of other backgrounds, due to either bias or misunderstanding on the part of custodial officers.

No Foucault, or jargon, necessary. And if we were to get more specific, discussing what were the immediate causes of higher rates of fatality, I suspect we'd find the situation even more amenable to everyday English.

Anyway, this thread is pretty much exactly the same as every other discussion I've ever had with anyone who thinks philosophy is useless. Maybe I'll start a thread asking "What is the value of economics?" and argue that we should get rid of economics because people still buy and sell things without reading economics journals.

If repetition of an issue were grounds for making a discussion not worthwhile, most of philosophy would have been consigned to historians of ideas long ago.

The problem with the critique of economics is that I can point to very specific ways in which institutional practice has improved due to better economics. That's much trickier when it comes to contemporary philosophy.

And, in any event, I think that's a fine discussion to have as well.

 

[Pythagoras]

I’m still not clear on what you take issue with, the abstract nature of some philosophers and their journals, or the abstract nature of some academics and their journals?

 

[Heuristic]

^ I'm mostly kicking around the ball, Pythagoras. Certain areas of academic philosophy are what I have in mind, not abstract thought generally. I'm not making any proposals as to university funding.

 

[Pythagoras]

Okay - Gotcha. I thought you might have had suffered under a dictatorial philosophy lecturer!!

Which bits of philosophy do you have in mind? Philosophy of science sems to be one, I would disagree but see where you're coming from. Are there any others that you feel lack sufficient value as to warrant postgraduate research and attendant journals? I outlined a rough curriculum of undergrad study above, do you feel any benefit only the professional philosopher? Do you feel the same about non-philosophic subject sub-categories? I am genuinely interested in your response (ie - I'm not attempting to open a Socratic dialectic

 

[CoffeeDrinker]

Here's a question:
What of the fact that there are no corporate philosophers?
If philosophy has such an intrinsic value why is it not also a marketable value outside of academia?
Surly a business with a philosopher giving advice to the boss would run much more smoothly and efficiently than one run on silly motivational messages and typical corporate bullcrap slogans.
Why are there no staff-philosophers as it were? Or maybe there should be!
That would be a very good way to truly measure the value of philosophy would it not?