Philosophy Versus Science

[GrandizerII]

Link to actual study here:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/...4490109D4A

[Alan V]

I think they now serve two entirely different purposes. With science tasked to objectively examine reality, and philosophy to subjectively question epistemological limits of human inquiry.

In other words, philosophy already reached the limits of its methods, whereas science, with its additional tools, is still going (though it may yet reach its limits someday too).

[Paleophyte]

A fascinating read. It's a paper in a non-reviewed journal penned by two philosophers extolling the virtues of philosophy. No discussion of any statistical treatment of the data is presented, in fact, you're left wondering what the data actually was. This is what they're fobbing off as evidence of philosophy being useful for anything? I give them an E for Effort.

I withdraw my edit in that case, and go back to "might help", which as we know is the same as "might not help".

"Philosophy majors rank higher than all other majors on verbal and logical reasoning, according to our new study published in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association."

It is actually a peer reviewed journal. 

That is to say peer reviewed by other philosophers. 

Ah, so it's an advertisement for their actual paper. I went and read it and it's drek. Their "stas" consisted of normalizing a bunch of test scores, many of which were self-reported. They ignored massive methodological problems, dismissing a really obvious selection bias out of hand. All that they're really measuring is that law schools are using philosophy departments as pre-Law filters. The budding law students are the ones with the best grades, and they need the GRE and LSAT tests to get into law school, which biases the results high. Tellingly, they found that philosophy students were three times more likely to take the GRE and LSAT, which pretty much tells you what a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy is worth. Interestingly, they didn't follow that avenue of thought. I'll keep their grade an E but add some glitter to make them feel better.

[Paleophyte]

I withdraw my edit in that case, and go back to "might help", which as we know is the same as "might not help".

"Philosophy majors rank higher than all other majors on verbal and logical reasoning, according to our new study published in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association."

It is actually a peer reviewed journal. 

That is to say peer reviewed by other philosophers. 

Philosophers say that those who study philosophy are smarter than people who don't.  Sounds legit.

It's like a brochure from Novartis explaining why you need more Ritalin in your diet.

[Sheldon]

I think they now serve two entirely different purposes. With science tasked to objectively examine reality, and philosophy to subjectively question epistemological limits of human inquiry.

In other words, philosophy already reached the limits of its methods, whereas science, with its additional tools, is still going (though it may yet reach its limits someday too).

Well, I think it's more that the methods of philosophy deal in subjectively questioning epistemological limits, while science deals in expanding them as objectively as possible. Whether philosophical enquiry reached it's limits is not yet clear, but for now it has definitely taken a back seat to scientific enquiry.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Philosophers say that those who study philosophy are smarter than people who don't.  Sounds legit.

It's like a brochure from Novartis explaining why you need more Ritalin in your diet.

Studies show that blacksmiths make better lovers. Source: United Blacksmiths of New Zealand.

Boru

[GrandizerII]

I just read through the study. I think it treated the central question of whether philosophical education cultivates intellectual abilities and dispositions/virtues quite well.

The researchers accounted for the obvious self-selection bias by adjusting the baseline differences on SAT tests and Habits of Mind and Pluralistic Orientation scales through well-accepted statistical models. The researchers acknowledged that the students who scored higher on the latter two scales and on SAT Verbal (before/at the very start of college) were more likely to be philosophy majors, but as stated earlier, this was accounted for. And philosophy majors ended up scoring higher than other majors on the LSAT and GRE Verbal and later completions of the Habits of Mind scale (which assessed various intellectual virtues such as intellectual rigour and humility and curiosity). They did remarkable on Pluralistic Orientation (which assesses something like open-mindedness) but did not score the highest mean there (they were the sixth highest). However, when it comes to quantitative aspects, they did not do so well compared to other majors.

The tendency for only the brightest philosophy majors to take the LSAT or the GRE was also examined, and they did not find any statistical evidence that this would have mattered to the validity of this study. By the way, the LSAT and GRE tests were treated separately.

It wasn’t a true experimental study, but this wouldn’t have been possible or ethical anyway. And the sample size was quite large anyway. So overall, it was a well done study.

[Belacqua]

either pursuit would make me less useful in certain ways.

The idea that it is good to be useful is of course a philosophical idea. 

"How should one live?" is among the oldest and most important topics in philosophy, and "one should be useful" is one  way that people have answered that question. Valuing usefulness over other things is a position that has a long history and genealogy. Some people have disagreed, of course, but I would never argue against it.

I'm sure you can see that it immediately raises another philosophical question. When we talk about "being useful," we always think in terms of "useful FOR something." A useful tool or useful knowledge facilitates some end. Therefore once one decides that it is good to be useful, the next question is "useful for what?" This, too, has been answered in many different ways, and has a long history and genealogy.

We can all probably agree that people who are useful in providing necessary medical care are doing a good thing, while people who are useful in maximizing insurance company profits by denying necessary medical care are not as good. 

Questions of values like "how should one live?" or "how should I spend the limited time I have on this earth?" are not questions that science can address. Ignoring questions like this, and denying their worth, increases the danger that people will not think carefully about the answers. 

I am not accusing you of being careless in your decision. I'm only saying that this is an important topic which science has no role in.

(AFTER a person has made a value choice -- e.g. "it would be good for me to cure diseases" -- then the methods one uses may well be informed by science. But the value choice itself is not a scientific choice.)

[Paleophyte]

The tendency for only the brightest philosophy majors to take the LSAT or the GRE was also examined, and they did not find any statistical evidence that this would have mattered to the validity of this study.

They didn't find any statistical evidence because they never went and looked. All they ever did was say 'Nah, didn't happen. Let's move on.' They looked for something they called "interaction" without ever even describing what that is, much less how they tested for it. Then they just go on to say that there isn't any. There's no way for anybody reading that paper to decide for themselves if there is or isn't, because we have no idea how they decided that.

Whenever you see your stats returning glowing praise like their diagrams show, you need to be very, very careful. Odds are very good that you're doing something wrong and your data is contaminated with nasty, nasty artifacts. The real world simply doesn't behave like that. It's horrifyingly messy and on a bright day, you get data that's good enough to draw a line through. When your data supports your conclusions this impressively, a good researcher goes and does some very thorough statistics. If only to make the "I told you so!" much more rigorous.

[Paleophyte]

either pursuit would make me less useful in certain ways.

The idea that it is good to be useful is of course a philosophical idea. 

"How should one live?" is among the oldest and most important topics in philosophy, and "one should be useful" is one  way that people have answered that question. Valuing usefulness over other things is a position that has a long history and genealogy. Some people have disagreed, of course, but I would never argue against it.

I'm sure you can see that it immediately raises another philosophical question. When we talk about "being useful," we always think in terms of "useful FOR something." A useful tool or useful knowledge facilitates some end. Therefore once one decides that it is good to be useful, the next question is "useful for what?" This, too, has been answered in many different ways, and has a long history and genealogy.

We can all probably agree that people who are useful in providing necessary medical care are doing a good thing, while people who are useful in maximizing insurance company profits by denying necessary medical care are not as good. 

Questions of values like "how should one live?" or "how should I spend the limited time I have on this earth?" are not questions that science can address. Ignoring questions like this, and denying their worth, increases the danger that people will not think carefully about the answers. 

I am not accusing you of being careless in your decision. I'm only saying that this is an important topic which science has no role in.

(AFTER a person has made a value choice -- e.g. "it would be good for me to cure diseases" -- then the methods one uses may well be informed by science. But the value choice itself is not a scientific choice.)

Philosophy (n): The study of that which is useful, conducted in such a way as to not be useful.