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.

[Macoleco]

I believe philosophy will eventual disappear as a field of study. This means that you will be uncapable of getting a degree in philosophy. Eventually philosophy will split in many different fields. The best example of this is physics.

A philosopher will be someone who knows a bit of everything. Nonetless, I consider this to be irrelevant.

[vulcanlogician]

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.

Anything is bad when it becomes dogmatic. That doesn't reflect poorly on the field itself.

There are dumbasses out there who dogmatically cling to the Ptolemaic model of the universe. That doesn't make astrophysics bad.

The essence of philosophy is to scrutinize ideas for their viability-- to question everything-- that's about as anti-dogmatic as it gets. As a field, philosophy doesn't have a problem with dogmatists. I have met philosophy professors from all over-- not one single dogmatist yet. If you count armchair philosophers on the internet as being representative of philosophy, you also have to count flat earthers as cosmologists. Let's not go down that road.

Socrates noticed that many Athenian politicians and soothsayers didn't gave genuine knowledge, but, still, they convinced many others that they did. When he questioned them to get at the foundations of their wisdom, he found that there was none there. He found that people's opinions on a given matter often prevailed and the truth of the matter was ignored. So he questioned people and coaxed them to present something demonstrable. Sound familiar? The Socratic spirit is alive and well in the sciences today. A chemist doesn't declare the truth of atomic properties by fiat, her assertions do not depend upon her authority. Even a solid theory such as relativity is examined again and again for possible oversights. So it is with philosophy. Any philosopher who studies Aristotle but does not subject his truth claims to the thumbscrews of skepticism is not a philosopher. (Just a fan.)

Philosophers ask important questions about justice and ethics. You have benefitted from this, whether you would admit it or not. Do you think we've solved all the problems of human justice? If not, then philosophers still have an important place in our society. Here is a link to a Wikipedia article on an important piece of philosophy. I dare you to call it speculation. Just remember that this particular work was controversial in its day, and needed to be argued for. People weren't sure of its validity. Do you think we've reached a point in human understanding where we no longer need to question our own assumptions? Hundreds of millions die of starvation in this world, yet other well-fed people elsewhere in the world are never educated their entire lives and do nothing but toil away in factories. Do you think we've figured out justice?

Do you think we have figured everything out, so that we have no underlying assumptions that need to be challenged? If so, then (by all means) let's get rid of philosophy. You say that dogmatic Aristotelians is why we need less philosophy. I say it's why we need more.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Well, the 'feel' seems to be a combination of the information and the emotional response to that information. The emotional response is the 'flavor'. And it seems pretty clear why the flavor was added from an evolutionary viewpoint: in makes it easier to remember and recall. It also makes it easier to act on in emergencies.

Some working on creating artificial consciousness think that it isn't possible without also creating emotions. Marvin Minsky was of the opinion that emotions are a way of arbitrating between different competing needs when you only have one body. Models seem to suggest that this is at least one function of emotions. Others being as you have pointed out, adding salience to memories and narrowing the range of responses for particular situations such as emergencies when a fully cognitive response is too slow.

The example I like to use is a rabbit eating grass in the sunshine suddenly hearing something that could be a predator. It's happy, therefore it's continuing its current behaviour because its brain has settled into a very stable state. But the noise acts as a form of disturbance injecting energy into the system, driving it out of a stable state to seek a new one. Nor does it want to be distracted by more grass, it needs safety so its range of responses is narrowed until it runs into a burrow where it can feel safe and more settled again. The neuromodulators released upon hearing the predator have a long lasting effect so it does not need to continue hearing or seeing it in order to be motivated to continue running home.

Point is that both consciousness and emotions provide useful functionality but people don't generally think in these terms, they're just aware their brain acting the way it does and wonder about its nature without understanding that it is emergent phenomena.

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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."

But you have never once given any evidence that there is anything more to the mind than the workings of the brain. All the evidence we have from neurodegenerative diseases, brain lesions and neuroscience suggest there is indeed nothing more.

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Philosophers ask important questions about justice and ethics. You have benefitted from this, whether you would admit it or not. Do you think we've solved all the problems of human justice? If not, then philosophers still have an important place in our society. Here is a link to a Wikipedia article on an important piece of philosophy. I dare you to call it speculation. Just remember that this particular work was controversial in its day, and needed to be argued for. People weren't sure of its validity. Do you think we've reached a point in human understanding where we no longer need to question our own assumptions? Hundreds of millions die of starvation in this world, yet other well-fed people elsewhere in the world are never educated their entire lives and do nothing but toil away in factories. Do you think we've figured out justice?

I don't think that anyone is denying that philosophy hasn't been useful in the past but it has been crowded out by experts in many other fields. There are plenty of people working on these problems that do not call themselves philosophers who also benefit from evidence and real-world experience. John Locke's essay was published in 1689. Times have moved on yet I am not sure that philosophy has. Are any of the problems you list above likely to be solved by philosophers, or by experts in the relevant fields?

I'm not saying that it isn't possible, but what would a philosopher have to do to solve these problems?

[vulcanlogician]

Times have moved on yet I am not sure that philosophy has.

THAT is exactly philosophy's value. If things are moving along fine, and the sciences of the age are logical and coherent... philosophy will be of little use. But you might want to keep philosophy around anyway. Why?

What if the Zeitgeist makes a wrong turn? Philosophy will be there to say "Hey, you made a wrong turn." The science can't do this. They never have, anyway. Philosophy has done it countless times. That's what it's good for.

Philosophy doesn't conform to the times. Just because the times have moved on, that doesn't mean philosophy has. You are trying to criticize philosophy, but you are naming her virtues instead.

[I_am_not_mafia]

OK take the example of Margaret Boden. She is an example of what I think philosopher should be. First off, I think she is fantastic. Her book 'Artificial Intelligence and Natural Man'  was what got me interested in AI around the age of 14. She was editor of 'The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence' and later 'The Philosophy of Artificial Life' which I haven't read but do need to one day. I personally found her paper 'Is metabolism necessary? published in the British Journal of Philosophy of Science extremely useful in my own research. I went to a lecture she held where she argues that the single defining feature shared by every form of life is that it has a metabolism.

Is she a philosopher or a scientist? She has worked as a lecturer in philosophy and published and edited many books about philosophy, cognitive science and artificial intelligence, yet doesn't regularly program herself as far I know. At the very least she performs a very useful role as a philosopher who is very useful to have around scientists. But that's because she is extremely well read on the subjects that she discusses and understands exactly what the science is doing. She is every much part of the scientific process. When you're focused on trying to get something to work and then become focused on writing up your results, it's very useful to have someone be able to put it into a wider context for you or to refer to someone who has done this work for you. But this requires a level of knowledge as advanced as the specialists doing the grunt work.

But this is a typical example. There are many other specialist philosophers, such as those that do Philosophy of biology. Often it's an academic who used to do the work themselves but spent their time reading papers, getting funding and having their name on the papers of thei researchers they manage.

[The Grand Nudger]

Seems legit.  What's an example of the set being compared against her example, though?  Let's posit she's in a set with others we'll call "the good ones™".  Who's in the other set?

[I_am_not_mafia]

Seems legit.  What's an example of the set being compared against her example, though?  Let's posit she's in a set with others we'll call "the good ones™".  Who's in the other set?

It's more that I'd put her in her in the set of "useful ones". Philosophy is not alone in this. Say after developing his theory of special relativity that Einstein did not bother to publish because he enjoyed being a patent clerk in Switzerland and only did the science for his own pleasure in the same way that others solve crossword puzzles. Then as far as the rest of us would be concerned he might as well might not have bothered. Scientists stand on the shoulders of giants and the work that we all do must be relevant to the literature and must be published so others can decide if they want to act on it. Otherwise why bother? It becomes a wasted effort. That is how science progresses and this is why it is focused on results.

The same applies to non-scientific fields as well in their own way. No matter how blue sky or abstract the intellectual endeavour, it ultimately needs the potential to be useful. And for this to be the case it needs to stay relevant to the problems that everyone else is working on. And for that to happen it needs to be performed alongside the other pursuits. There is still a need for philosophy, but it's now the specialists who are doing it and making it part of their process to the extent that even the word 'philosophy' has become a mere byword for taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture of what is currently happening in your field, where it should go and whether we can draw any conclusions from it.

As far as I can see, the majority of philosophy is no longer being carried out by dedicated philosophers.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, if utility is the indicator - then objective moral theorists (and theories) have tremendous utility in law or politics.  An area of notable consequence, especially to science. 

[Whateverist]

Seems legit.  What's an example of the set being compared against her example, though?  Let's posit she's in a set with others we'll call "the good ones™".  Who's in the other set?

It's more that I'd put her in her in the set of "useful ones". Philosophy is not alone in this. Say after developing his theory of special relativity that Einstein did not bother to publish because he enjoyed being a patent clerk in Switzerland and only did the science for his own pleasure in the same way that others solve crossword puzzles. Then as far as the rest of us would be concerned he might as well might not have bothered. Scientists stand on the shoulders of giants and the work that we all do must be relevant to the literature and must be published so others can decide if they want to act on it. Otherwise why bother? It becomes a wasted effort. That is how science progresses and this is why it is focused on results.

The same applies to non-scientific fields as well in their own way. No matter how blue sky or abstract the intellectual endeavour, it ultimately needs the potential to be useful. And for this to be the case it needs to stay relevant to the problems that everyone else is working on. And for that to happen it needs to be performed alongside the other pursuits. There is still a need for philosophy, but it's now the specialists who are doing it and making it part of their process to the extent that even the word 'philosophy' has become a mere byword for taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture of what is currently happening in your field, where it should go and whether we can draw any conclusions from it.

As far as I can see, the majority of philosophy is no longer being carried out by dedicated philosophers.

Perhaps it is simply a matter of enough philosophers working on questions of interest to you. They’re not all working on matters of significance to me either, the blighters.