What's the point of philosophy any more?

[I_am_not_mafia]

I have often ranted about philosophy in the past, more so about people who think that they are doing philosophy because they string along some arbitrary premises to reach a specific conclusion without ever applying it to the real world. All the while dressing it up as something erudite and intellectual by defining things in meaningless ways and sticking -ism on the end of words. Or maybe they use obsolete philosophy which made sense two millennium ago in the time of Aristotle say but which is now obsolete

I know that science was born out of philosophy, but why then do we still need philosophy as a field? As far as I can see philosophy is trying to do what science does but without referring to any evidence or backing up what it asserts. And when performed by amateur arm chair philosophers, without any relevance to the real world either.

You could say that philosophy asks the questions that science is incapable of asking, until that is science is capable of answering them. But these same questions can also be discussed in a scientific paper. You can write a position paper for example that does not produce any new results but references the scientific literature and then publish it in a scientific journal. When I write papers myself, I always have experiments and results to demonstrate that the idea is logically consistent, but that doesn't stop me waffling on about stuff that would in another time have been considered philosophy. In my mind it's a science paper, even when presented in a symposium on computing and philosophy. The point is that scientists can still reason about the nature or reality as part of doing science. And no matter what new technique you are presenting, you still need to ground it in the literature and justify why you are researching it.

It's not that I have a complete downer on philosophy when done properly. I have read and referenced papers published in philosophy journals that have been extremely useful. The papers though could just have easily been published as a position paper in a scientific journal. Looking through my bibtex file of references I now realise that quite a few papers I have found useful in the past have actually been published in collections of works that use the word 'Philosophy' in their title. As far as I can tell though they are called this to signify that the focus is on discussing the current progress of the field and where it should go next rather than presenting new techniques. But this happens anyway as part of the scientific process and seems a far cry from what I see referred to solely as philosophy. Should this now be the extent of the use of the word 'philosophy' ?

So can or should philosophy continue to exist as a field in its own right or should it be restricted to be part of the scientific process? What's the practical use of pure philosophy when it is not part of the scientific process? Other than, that is, it's use as a form of mental exercise.

Or is my view jaded by all the religionists I see bastardising obsolete philosophy in order to spread their parasitic infection?

There are two jokes I have heard:

A philosophy degree makes you philosophical enough to work in McDonalds afterwards.

What's the difference between a pure Mathematician and a pizza? The pizza can feed a family of four.

Both are essentially saying the same thing, but at least the pure Mathematician has the potential to apply their work. Can the same be said of a pure Philosopher? (Directly that is, not as some transferable skill)

[The Grand Nudger]

Or is my view jaded by all the religionists I see bastardising obsolete philosophy in order to spread their parasitic infection?

It's this one.  Those fuckers ruin everything.

[RoadRunner79]

Seems like you are asking a lot of philosophical questions!

[I_am_not_mafia]

Seems like you are asking a lot of philosophical questions!

Would that then be meta-philosophy?

[Sal]

I have, at least in recent times, viewed philosophy as giving the framework in which physical sciences works in. Dunno where to place mathematics in this, mathematics (particularly formal logic) seems to be the tool for applying science.

You can still do physics, chemistry, biology and social science without including philosophy, but that's like building a house with no underlying foundation, because why you are doing these sciency fields seems to be answered by philosophy.

Isn't philosophy sort of "re-viewing" the knowledge the physical sciences have already established? Or what?

[The Grand Nudger]

If we're satisfied that the current system is without room for improvement, discovery, or additional clarity..then there's no point.  Are we, though?  Because if we're not.....then we have reason to keep polishing the stone.  Polishing that stone polishes every statement made out of it..including every single scientific conclusion.    

A great quote from sagan, on this-

The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one..has an elaborate logical underpinning.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Isn't philosophy sort of "re-viewing" the knowledge the physical sciences have already established? Or what?

I can see there being a role for philosophy if it is interdisciplinary and draws upon many different scientific fields without specialising in any of them. That would take some serious effort and be useful for scientists working on their own problems who might miss out on the breakthroughs made by scientists working in other fields. That would then be quite interesting to read up. Funding bodies have started to try promoting interdisciplinary research by bringing together experts from different fields to work together. Maybe philosophy will end up heading in this direction as each scientific field fragments into multiple specialisms.

---

If we're satisfied that the current system is without room for improvement, discovery, or additional clarity..then there's no point.  Are we, though?  Because if we're not.....then we have reason to keep polishing the stone.  Polishing that stone polishes every statement made out of it..including every single scientific conclusion.   

My question is more along the lines of, what's the point of having a load of nicely polished stones laying around everywhere cluttering up the place looking elegant and ornamental?

I see the need for blue sky research for example, but at least blue sky research in science, maths and logic means that there is the possibility of making a better kind of door stop with your polished stone. Pure philosophy seems to be done for its own end.

My husband and I always laugh when we see a pure Mathematician interviewed on TV because of a break-through they spent their entire careers working on. The interviewer will ask them what use it is and the mathematician will mumble something along the lines of "uses in stacking, queueing theory and encryption ...". It's like a secret code understood to mean, well yeah, it's been a really difficult puzzle that I really wanted to solve it and get paid at the same time.

[vulcanlogician]

As you pointed out, philosophy can be a form of mental exercise. But it's more than that. It is a way of opening the mind to new ideas.

People have been declaring philosophy useless for a long time. Socrates' contemporaries couldn't find any use in it, and that was before it birthed the sciences.

Science, sociology, psychology... all these fields were once philosophy. But that's the thing. Once philosophy begins to have a practical use, it no longer is called philosophy. We name it something else. It's actually a bit unfair to say "science was born from philosophy." Science is philosophy. It's just philosophy of a very specific type.

You can't really fault philosophy for not being practical if you're going to give high regard to science in the same breath. How practical is studying distant galaxies or learning what happened moments after the big bang? A lot of science is "not practical"... or at the very least its practical application is not realized until the science is done. Science never starts as a practical endeavor. For example, some scientists were once studying microwaves just to learn about the properties of light at this wavelength. One of them left a candybar on the counter and it melted. The scientists were baffled by this and started asking why this happened. So they ran some experiments. It turned out that microwaves have heating properties. Some time later, a guy used the knowledge that had been discovered to invent the microwave oven--a highly useful and practical invention. The point is, the scientists who discovered this property of microwaves weren't trying to invent an oven. But they ended up doing so, though indirectly. So it is with philosophy. John Locke might not have been considered "practical" in his day, but now, in modern times, most western governments are modeled after his ideas. Things like civil liberties, branches of government, and separation of church and state.

Countless authors, activists, and other genii were inspired by philosophers. Gandhi was greatly influenced by the ideas of Henry David Thoreau. Nobody could see any practical use of Thoreau's work when he was formulating his ideas. But a century later those same ideas were used to liberate an entire nation.

If philosophy doesn't seem practical to you, look closer. Philosophy never seems practical when it is being done. It only becomes practical when somebody decides to do something useful with it. Just like science, philosophy is about discovering the nature of life and the universe. It's not a practical endeavour at the outset, but I guarantee you if we stopped philosophizing right now, compulsory prayer would be back in schools in a few decades. We need thinkers to challenge the status quo. We need thinkers to question our assumptions and postulate something new. We need thinkers to analyze the human condition and plot a course to liberation. In short, we need philosophers or (as a society) we will never be able to see past our own nose.

[The Grand Nudger]

My question is more along the lines of, what's the point of having a load of nicely polished stones laying around everywhere cluttering up the place looking elegant and ornamental?

I promise to drop the analogy after this final use..but..put simply, because those stones are the things that validate the conclusions of the research we see as integral to knowledge.

I see the need for blue sky research for example, but at least blue sky research in science, maths and logic means that there is the possibility of making a better kind of door stop with your polished stone. Pure philosophy seems to be done for its own end.

It;s and end with many products...so it;s..at least potentially, an eefficient avenue of improvement.  If we improve..for example..the rules of material implication - all material implications are improved.  

My husband and I always laugh when we see a pure Mathematician interviewed on TV because of a break-through they spent their entire careers working on. The interviewer will ask them what use it is and the mathematician will mumble something along the lines of "uses in stacking, queueing theory and encryption ...". It's like a secret code understood to mean, well yeah, it's been a really difficult puzzle that I really wanted to solve it and get paid at the same time.

LOL, sure.  I'd say that the "pure philosopher" (apologists don't even approach that) is trying to solve a puzzle about how we know what we know..and it may be that they have no specific practical application in mind..but if they can solve the puzzle then it sits as a completed piece that others can leverage to effect in blue sky research or practical application. 

We all have our favorite examples..I've probably bored you with this one before.   If I haven't bored you with it before..then you'll appreciate it for swirling around a subject you're discussing and being frustrated with in another thread.

Just a quick summary for lurkers- allegedly, any mp can be an mt and vv with a single transposition to the premise of material implication. If p, then q..if not q then not p.  These are both valid and equivalent forms and as such we think that if the variables..defined, are granted..then they lead to knowledge, to truth. 

If we apply that to a ship in the night sinking and a subsequent report in the local paper the next morning, though..the transition implies something intuitively wrong.  If (p)a ship sinks in the night, then (q)there will be a report in the morning.  If (not q)there will not be a report in the morning, (not p) a ship did not sink in the night.  So what gives?  There's the puzzle.  Can a future event be the cause of a past event?  Or maybe theres some problem with conditionals.  Or aybe it isn;t the case that every mt can be an mp or vv.  Or maybe it's a problem of language.

No matter what the answer is to that puzzle..it will inform all products of all conditional statements because it's a comment on conditional statements in general.

[tjakey]

My understanding is that philosophy is basically a framework on which to construct a world view. That view should, 1) reflect the world as it really exists to our best approximation and, 2) allow the holder of that philosophy to exist in that world with understanding, joy, and compassion.

It seems that many divergent, and apparently mutually exclusive, philosophies can be used by different individuals to reach those goals. Such shouldn’t come as a surprise. Most of what surrounds us is mystery, from the actual history and workings of the cosmos to the history and workings of our species, to that of any individual.

So I can find a framework built on Stoicism to be useful while easily recognizing the similarities to other ideologies. (There is much discussion on the correlations between Stoicism and Buddhism.) More importantly is recognizing people of a kindred spirit who are making their way even if their framework is built on an ideology I find puzzling or objectionable. For example two of my daughters and both of their husbands are very committed Catholics. (One of my sons-in-law is a Catholic Priest…really. It is a long story.) They are some of the best people I know.

Getting off topic a bit, there is one big difference between religion and philosophy. Being careful of the semantics; religions are followed while philosophies are studied and applied. Maybe one of the main reasons I find religion unpalatable while finding philosophy interesting and helpful.