What's the point of philosophy any more?

[polymath257]

This is partly why I am allergic to the notion of 'the thing itself' separated from the information we have about it.

Temperature and electricity are both macroscopic phenomena: temperature is related to the average kinetic energy of the atoms and molecules while electricity is related to the motion of charges.

Now, you can reasonably ask what an electric field is. or what a magnetic field is. Or even what mass is. Or energy. But *all* are operationally defined. The meaning of those terms is *defined* by how we can take measurements of them. At no point is it even reasonable to talk about the 'thing itself'. ALL we can do is model what we observe. We go beyond that only in models we create to understand and predict future observations.

I think operational definitions are important.  If you had only to observe a thing As-It-Really-Is™, you could never really do anything.  However, one of the roles of philosophy with regard to science is to make sure that no matter what operational definitions or models we come up with, we don't conflate them with the actual thing, Whatever-It-Is.

And this is why I am allergic to that notion: it is completely inaccessible and thereby without any real meaning, as far as I can see. The *only* meaningful statements here are those that give things we can observe and test.

I maintain it is literally meaningless to talk about the 'thing-in-itself'.

For example, we do great brain science by studying organic chemistry, using various electromagnetic frequencies to see what neurons are doing, etc.  But I will always slam on the brakes when someone insists that it's known that "the mind is only brain function," or even worse, "the mind is only information processing."  It's very interesting to study both brain function and information processing, but philosophical bias in science could eventually limit avenues of inquiry too much.

Well, if all we ever find out about the mind can be described in terms of information processing, I really don't see the problem. If everything we typically attribute to the mind has a brain correlate where there is a one-to-one correspondence, then again I don't see the problem. In fact, at that point, I would consider the proposition proved. before that, it is merely very, very likely.

For example, if we "know" that mind is only brain function or information processing, we may give human rights to Google.com some day, without considering seriously whether that's necessary or even well-advised.  Philosophy is there to challenge biases every step of the way: "Tell me (yet) again how  you know google is actually thinking.  Why does your definition of thought merit the application of human rights?" and so on.

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And one of the limitations of philosophy is that it is speculation. it cannot, by its very nature, prove things. It can investigate logical alternatives, but logic alone is a very, very weak filter on ideas.

The best philosophy is done when alternative definitions are investigated and their benefits analyzed.

How do you know when something is proven?  How do we decide whether something is really a benefit or not?  How are we to determine whether analysis is being done correctly?  How do we decide which aspects of the Universe are most worth investigating?  Science can't really determine whether science is being done correctly, because circles are bad.

Literally at every step of the way, philosophy is woven through the fabric of science, and pretty much every human experience and endeavor.

We do this like we always do: take the best, testable ideas and keep testing them whenever we can. In the study of the real world, no abstract statement is ever actually proven. All that can be demonstrated is the results of observation and that can only be used to prove that some ideas are wrong.

We investigate those aspects that trip our trigger. No other criterion is possible, ultimately. We really have no way to judge potential benefits of fundamental research *because it is fundamental research*. We can use experience to say that we find certain questions to be interesting or probably useful for what we want to do, but at the boundary of knowledge, we cannot know such things for certain.

Again, philosophy is best when it is devoted to exploring the results of various definitions. It is when it becomes dogmatic (like Scholaticism) that it becomes dangerous. If it doesn't learn to eliminate bad ideas (and the fact that Aristotle still has followers is a proof that it doesn't), then it will become less and less relevant over time.