Philosophy discussion
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"Philosophy is dead"
I share Philip's distrust of cognitive science, where it attempts to find quantitative evidence for mental phenomena. There is no doubt that sufferers from medical conditions such as aphasia, where there is loss of functionality in speaking, reading or writing, have received concrete benefits from cognitive research, but it is highly questionable whether testable inferences about individual psychology and behaviour can represent anything other than interesting diversions in our quest to understand the human condition. Human character traits are never purely psychological, so that when we speak of a person as “jealous” we are combining cultural, economic and psychological factors. It is an advance on behaviourism to recognise that the mind must be attributed with substantial content, but unrealistic to recognise it simply as a passive object of our biological and psychological inheritance. It is typically forgotten by cognitive scientists that the mind must be situated in an external world and must be able to make reference to this world in order for us to be able to act. This is where the conceptual confusion lies.
Necessary future modifications to the new field of cognitive science aside, it is still a powerful example of how a powerful symbiosis between science and philosophy might work. Yes, cognitive science still has a narrow psycho-neural focus and does not consider either the ontological and environmental embedding of mind, or its cultural-historical embedding - this is something I am hoping cognitive scientists will correct in the future (a true science of human nature, after all, would have to incorporate neuroscience, psychology, evolutionary study, linguistics, as well as history, political science, economy, sociology, and cultural anthropology). It is difficult right now just to form some valid method that satisfies both neuroscience and psychology. Cognitive scientists I feel are wary of biting off more than they can chew, as it were - baby steps. And yes, cognitive science is still heavily criticized (mostly by hard-nosed empiricists, particularly from the neuroscience side of the discipline) for not keeping up with new empirical finds in the individual disciplines. There is still a jar between theory and data, between the interdisciplinary and the specialist perspectives. However, being the newest science, one can hardly expect more.
Despite these many flaws, I see here the beginnings of a full-fledged taking on of the traditional epistemic project with the aid of the latest empirical evidence. They're trying to take up the challenge of formulating and constructing a "science of human nature," and they necessarily note that such a science would have to be philosophically-based, interdisciplinary, as well as encompassing a great deal of actual experimental work. If they keep trucking in this direction, great results are sure to follow. And only such a study, I feel, can actually solve the intellectual problems formulated in philosophy proper.
I just realized that for at least a page now we've been exploring quite a different topic, necessarily related to the OP, so I started a thread on The Future of Philosophy. http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...
Elena wrote: "Necessary future modifications to the new field of cognitive science aside, it is still a powerful example of how a powerful symbiosis between science and philosophy might work. Yes, cognitive scie..."I did some research in this area for my master's thesis, and although I went in expecting to be more critical of neuroscience from a philosophical perspective, I actually came out seeing the possibility for a healthy, non-reductive relationship between neuroscience and philosophy.
If anyone is interested and would like to give critical feedback, this attempt at synthesis of cognitive science with historically-oriented philosophy is available in my master's thesis at the link below.
The passage is in Chapter 5, "Science and the Subject of Moral Autonomy," under a section titled "Neurobiology and Philosophy of Right" on page 68.
It's essentially a critical comparison of
(A) Paul Churchland's modeling of how moral dilemmas function in the brain based on recent empirical neuroscience data, with
(B) Hegel's philosophical account (from his Philosophy of Right) of the cultural and historical development of the modern subject or individual-of-conscience, an account of how and why we've come to hold the modern notion of autonomous selfhood that we do.
http://gradworks.umi.com/1520004.pdf
Any feedback appreciated.
Best regards,
Tom McDonald
"A male lion that recently became head of his pride will usually kill all the cubs sired by the previous leader."This is the story of science and philosophy.
However, the hope is that speculative philosophy will always prevail and bring new and better science. This is my conviction and hope.
Group Members:I'm new to GoodReads groups and unfamiliar with discussion and posting etiquette. Since this is my first comment in any group format, I ask for patience from members if I'm out of turn.
Tom:
Many thanks for making available your thesis "The Politicizing of Science..." Although I have only done an initial quick skim of your entire work, I am fascinated by its structure and substance in your examination of such an opportune topic. . . upon which I have often pondered, albeit in a much more random and casual manner.
I have just begun to peruse your paper more carefully, and later may have some questions and feedback if you still wish to hear them. Most especially, your reasoning on the concept of a "free" mind and its contradiction with scientific inquiry caught my attention, but seemed too complex to be grasped in a quick read. My formal education excludes the many categories of -isms and -istics you use throughout your paper, and my initial skim-through really whet my appetite to understand the terminology better.
Thanks again.
Conrad
The fact that there is open discussion about the meaning of the statement "philosophy is dead" is convincing evidence to the contrary. As long as there is open and honest discussion about any topic then philosophy is alive and well. Using consensus or majority-rule as a tool to measure the importance or value of any philosophical discussion or scientific achievement is the thing that is dead. Hawkings is basically saying there is no consensus pertaining to the meaning of modern scientific discoveries. In the past we have been told what to think by so-called "experts." The days of the "experts" telling us how to interpret events in our personal and professional lives are the things resting in Hawkings preverbial coffin.
This is a very long thread, and I have not read all of it. (I see things got fractious at one point...) But going back to Hawkins' original statement, I found this in Mary Midgley's The Myths We Live By, page 4, which I thought was worth quoting,"Today too, another influential image, drawn from Nietzsche, works on the model of a Deaths column in a newspaper. Here you just report the death of something: Art, or Poetry, or History, or the Author, or God, or Nature, or Metaphysics or whatever, publish its obituary, and then forget about it."
I thought I'd link to the book. Goodreads is about real books after all: The Myths We Live by
"Even when all the possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched." L.W.
"Wenn alle möglichen wissenschaftlichen Fragen beantwortet sind, unsere Lebensprobleme noch gar nicht berührt sind."Yes, that is the perfect quote for this thread, Preston.
I don't understand a lot of what has been written in this string. But philosophy is not dead. Two friends and I went out for dinner tonight after a round of golf and we spent a few hours doing philosophy as we parsed subjects like what is knowable, how to deal with religious ideas that strike us as highly improbable, what to think about Aristotle's notions of courage, temperance and the limits of knowledge, have we lost faith in our government's ability to solve problems and what to do about it and so forth. All over a beautiful meal and some righteous wine. It is most decidedly not dead.By the way, I have to say that some of the posts that I have read citing Plato and Nietzsche are just embarrassing. To cite a few examples, Plato is enormously relevant to modern thinking and not just to historians. His ideas are not baffling to current philosophers.
Also, while it is popular to say the Nietzsche would have disapproved of the Nazis, it is not as simple as that. He might well have been uncomfortable with the Nazis more simplistic and vulgar ideas and he clearly disapproved of anti-semitism. But it is also true that he very likely would have embraced an elite and sophisticated version of Naziism where the leaders had refined, good taste and rejected the thuggishness and brutality of the Brown Shirts.
How will we ever know if philosophy is dead?
In reference to the quote from Prof. Hawkings which began this discussion, hyperbole sells books.However, philosophy is taking a back seat to science in public schools. A fact of modern life which raises a disturbing question. Is the shift, in basic education, away from the humanities (rhetoric, ethics, etc...) and towards a career applicable curriculum (math, science, etc...) undermining the political health of western style democracy?
Let me explain. The many posts so far have demonstrated that philosophical thought is still quite vigorous, but it is also on a level which is often difficult to follow if you aren't very well read in the various diciplines. Most people are not that well read on ontology or ethics, and at best would consider the source materials a bit dry. Because they feel that such works are dry, as adults they have little incentive to read "Leviathan" or "The Federalist Papers" or even "Common Sense". If we posit that these and similar works form the foundations for our modern democracies, than we must concede that many of our citizens get their only education on the core elements of modern democracy as children. Therefore if we teach less and less of the humanities in schools, than our future citizens have less and less understanding of the nature of a republic. If they do not understand what the republic really is, than how can they differentiate between real and imagined threats to the republic?
I worry that instead of educating citizens, we are training proles.
J. wrote: "In reference to the quote from Prof. Hawkings which began this dicussion, hyperbole sells books.However, philosophy is taking a back seat to science in public schools. A fact of modern life which..."
Beautifully expressed, J.
I would also like to add to your great post that exposure to philosophical thought through education is very important not only in educating a politically active citizenry, but also (and not so paradoxically) in cultivating and developing better scientists! Science is ultimately about being able to answer the ultimate question of life and the Universe. That's not something that can be approached lightly, as it involves very careful distinction between reality and perception, objectivity and subjectivity, and it is necessarily grounded on epistemology. Just look at the on-going issues with the various contrasting interpretations of Quantum Mechanics, to see how these aspects can't be ignored. It is also a myth that science is purely inductive and that experimentation is always the starting point. This is not how Relativity was developed by Einstein, just as an example.
On top of this, philosophy helps you develop a way of thinking, a way of dealing with complexity, a way of approaching problems from multiple perspectives at the same time, which are extremely important in every kind of human endeavour... might it be social and political science, ethics, sciences and mathematics, engineering and technology etc...
Fortunr,As I see it, we are in agreement that philosophy is not dead. We also seem to be in agreement that our posterity is imperiled by a lack of education in core philosophical diciplines.
We appear to differ slightly in what we consider the pupose of a primary education to be.
I view the major purpose of the public school system to be educating citizens. With a secondary purpose providing students with a general education in the sciences which can be elaborated on and/or specialized in a degree program later.
You seem to view the primary purpose of public schools to be a general education.
In both views it seems that the most relevant diciplines to be taught are those which would allow the students to discern "truth" in a sea of facts. That is, to recognize bad arguments no matter how well supported they may be. That would seem to lead towards logic, semantics, rhetoric and history.
Would you agree with this assessment?
J. wrote: "Fortunr,As I see it, we are in agreement that philosophy is not dead. We also seem to be in agreement that our posterity is imperiled by a lack of education in core philosophical diciplines.
We ..."
Hi J., many thanks for your post. I completely see and fully appreciate your perspective; I can also see that our two perspectives may differ slightly (maybe because my view is inevitably biased by my own nerdy (science, maths, information technology) background :).
I completely agree with your assessment regarding the common element to both our views: the capacity to discern truth and critically evaluate information is the foundational aspect (and probably nothing like philosophy is more helpful in developing this capacity for critical evaluation).
I might also have given the impression of considering public school education in a utilitarianistic perspective, which in truth is not my view: I think that a well-rounded individual, educated in both the humanities and the sciences, makes for a fully sentient and participative citizen, and this is what education should be aiming for.
I would also like to add another major concern of mine: it appears to me that there is a growing anti-intellectual and anti-science sentiment developing in some circles, especially in some Countries (sometimes resembling a form of McCarthyism), where critical and free thinking and science are attacked. I think that reducing and/or removing the teaching of disciplines like philosophy and history will only exacerbate this potential problem. Like you so beautifully expressed: "I worry that instead of educating citizens, we are training proles".
Hello Fortunr,Thanks for your reply. In these times it often seems that polite discussions have passed into history, so this is a bit of a relief.
As to your last paragraph, I am reminded of an odd theory of history usually refered to as the endless waltz. The theory is a variation on the wheel of history. The endless waltz differs from the wheel of history in that it divides history into three cyclical periods, like the three beats in a waltz. The beats are peace, revolution and war. The waltz leads off in a period of peace. Then a revolution challenges long established norms, class structure is damaged and people feel threatened. The common reaction to a percieved threat is fundamentalism. As fundamentalism takes root, the next step becomes inevitable, war. When the combatants have been bled white, and their fundamentalist leaders have neen buried, the world slips into peace. Then the cycle begins anew.
I realize that all theories of cyclical history are flawed, but I can't help but note that we are surrounded by revolution and rising fundamentalism. It might not be too late to stop the next step, but it will not be easy.
Hello J.,many thanks for your reply - your latest post made me think that there might well be some truth in the endless waltz analogy (unfortunately).
In fact, it appears to me that, even with all the technological and scientific progress we have seen in the last 120 years in particular, we have not progressed as much in areas such as ethics, political and human sciences, and in general knowledge of the human mind and human condition - so we are potentially bound to repeat the same mistakes such as Nationalism, fundamentalism, totalitarianism etc. And by just looking at the so many idiotic TV programs and government propaganda out there, you may be excused for thinking that we have not progressed much.
But, on the positive side, if you look at sites like Goodreads, where so many articulate persons share their ideas (including in forums and groups like this one) you can see that maybe this vision is a bit pessimistic, and that probably these articulate people are simply much less "visible" than other individuals who are always ready to shout to the world their ideologies and their dogmas.
Philosophy is not dead. It just has a relatively smaller audience than at certain times in the past. But it has always been an activity of the elite. So a small audience is nothing terribly new.What might be new is that it is now possible to get through college without learning any philosophy. I don't know if that it good, bad or inevitable given the vulgar times in which we live.
I agree with you, Brad - with the exclusion of the last sentence, as I strongly think that the progressive reduction/elimination of philosophy (and other "humanities") is wrong, short-sighted and dangerous. Is it inevitable ? Probably, and this unfortunately appears to be a worldwide trend. Do we live in vulgar times ? I couldn't agree more - just switch the TV on, and watch a few random channels for a few hours :).
Philosophy can't die ..it always stays and would stay in the human mom's until he thinks or else he is literally dead
For those among us acknowledging that or wondering whether Hawking does have some kind of a point, I would like to refer you to a scathing self-criticism of academic philosophy by a philosophy professor (!). In a truly remarkable comment (COMMENT #4) that I think hits the nail on the head, Daniel A. Kaufman of Missouri State gives a succinct summary of the state of philosophy: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog...A must-read for anybody interested in the state of philosophy.
Only, what you call standard cliches of the anti-philosophers are pronounced by a recognized philosophy professor. Calling individuals who raise questions about the state of philosophy anti-philosophers and calling the questions they raise standard cliches does not answer these questions or disqualify them. Rather, it confirms their validity.
When issues in this respect are being described as cliches because they supposedly have been used so often that they are no longer original or interesting (this is what cliche means), some very interesting related questions arise: Who has an interest in disqualifying them this way and why? Does the fact that such issues are repeated over and over again without being addressed by academic philosophy not suggest that there must be substance to them?
The acknowledgment by Professor Kaufman that the emperor wears no clothes (see Grimm's tales) should make us all think.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with Martin. Philosophy is undergoing a crisis in that it is forced to find itself in a new relationship to society. Perhaps, as the article suggests, it has to do with the institutionalization of knowledge in universities . Perhaps the dynamic enforced by this institutional, academic arrangement of knowledge “production” (note industrial metaphor) really prevents us from reaching real understanding. What we are rewarded for is really how many cartloads of hair-splitting articles we can produce. Work on improving the rational structure of first principles that grounds any specialized pursuit is simply not interesting to institutions dishing out recognition. If you want to score points in that game, you have to play by the (very restrictive) rules imposed by the institution. A philosopher, unfortunately, cannot cram his thought into so narrow a framework without mutilating it. Related to this issue of institutionalization is the rise of technical thinking; perhaps we have that to blame. We no longer think we have anything to gain in understanding by trying to think through the logical principles that underlie our special disciplines; we just think the heap of factual information we gather so prodigiously will someday magically come together into a whole with no logical superstructure uniting it all and no act of reason involved. That`s the whole logic behind the Information paradigm. This means that science becomes technical rather than philosophically-self-aware. As a result, science itself loses in understanding as it no longer has the philosophic means to reflect on the rational principles that found its specific methodologies, or to relate them to any center, either in ontology or philosophical anthropology (theories of human nature).
Perhaps again it is the crisis of relativism that so weakened philosophy’s self-image. Since Nietzsche, philosophers have imploded in a profound, scathing self- critique of the whole possibility of their traditional enterprise with its thrust to provide an encompassing perspective of human life, thereby achieving the ideal of the “examined life.” In a world of fractured, localized perspectives, we’re to guffaw at any attempt at synoptic understanding by using the so-called hermeneutic of suspicion which is supposed to be an intellectual bulwark of democratic values.
All of the above have been discussed by philosophers and all seem valid. In my opinion, the diminishing of the status of philosophy, and its weakening through all the means described above, is one of the deepest causes of our current intellectual predicament. Without philosophy, all the various areas of human culture will suffer. They will suffer for lack of self-awareness and incapacity to transcend partial perspectives in order to inch towards something more true to the wholeness that human life is capable of.
J, your post really got me thinking these past few weeks. I have a question. I was wondering what sort of insights or values you think might be important for the education of philosophically-aware citizens rather than proles.
Martin wrote: "For those among us acknowledging that or wondering whether Hawking does have some kind of a point, I would like to refer you to a scathing self-criticism of academic philosophy by a philosophy prof..."Martin,
Do you have anything of your own to add?
Citations are used in debates to back up your own position. You have not stated a definate position. All that you have done is refer us to a critique of a critique of a book.
Elena,A citizen must recognize personal responsibility for the actions of the state. She must also wield political force in a manner appropriate to extant situations and in a manner that is consistant with her beliefs.
Aside from history, the curriculum should include at least a broad outline of the major schools of philosophy. So that the student are able to recognize the major themes and flaws of rationalism, empiricism, utilitarianism, deontology, skepticism, stoicism, etc... This understanding should be reinforced by active debate in various formats.
The goal of is not to make them historians. The goal is to give them a personal relationship to moral thought and logic with some experience in spotting bad arguments from the debates. So armed, they can at least discern to what they should be paying attention and what they believe.
Out of curiosity, which lines of philosophy would you consider most useful to this end?
J.Thank you for your interest whether I have anything of my own to add. I do. I believe academic philosophy carries essential responsibility in helping humans and humanity find purpose and conforming practices and requires a great deal of constructive criticism to make it relevant in this respect. I also believe that such relevance is sorely needed in a world with continuing error and consequential horror. Philosophy that found its way into popular convictions, or only the convictions of popular leaders, certainly can be blamed for some of that error and horror. But its failures must not obstruct the insight that it is the only means we have to elevate ourselves and humankind in the long run.
Constructive criticism of academic philosophy may not meet with much approval from authorities that make their living reveling in and passing on philosophical tradition without developing beyond or engaging in spurious mind games. I suspect change to render academic philosophy more relevant - if it should ever be accomplished - would have to be mainly pursued by people not vested in its status quo. The welfare if not the survival of many humans and humanity may depend on such change. Groups like this may take on an important function in that context.
I wrote in much more detail about this in a recently published book named Philosophy of Happiness. You can find an excerpt of circa 10 pages about the state and responsibility of academic philosophy and suggestions of how to give it the necessary relevance in human pursuits at (http://www.palioxis.com/philosophy.html).
Martin,So you are saying;
1.) Great burden
2.) Change is needed
3.) Buy my book to find out how.
"Constructive criticism of academic philosophy may not meet with much approval from authorities that make their living reveling in and passing on philosophical tradition without developing beyond or engaging in spurious mind games."Indeed. I am glad this kind of work is being done.
I am wondering though, what do you think about positivists who believe that philosophy should be replaced by the human sciences in determining "what ought to be?"
Also, just reading this introduction, I can't tell if the book attempts a full analysis as to how philosophy got to such a marginal place on the intellectual scene. My argument, above, attempts to offer a few possible reasons why it has. The primary challenges come from positivism (the OP), from the irrational faith in technical modes of thinking, as well as from the corrosive relativistic critiques, all of which have served to undermine philosophy's confidence that it could offer answers to the questions that drive our existence. Classical analytic philosophy also didn't help the issue by choosing to simply dismiss the questions people care about by relegating them to the junkbin of emotive "nonsense." This pretty much painted a sign over philosophy for most people that says: "Philosophers simply do not care about these issues that are close to your heart. Look elsewhere for help." And people did look elsewhere. They turned to phony mish-mashes of new agey-doctrines from self-interested gurus, to feel-good psycho-lingo, to the theatrical posturing of self-absorbed "artists," to mind-altering substances as well as to a general recourse to the irrational for relief of the existential anxieties that reason now refuses to deal with, etc.
The institutionalization of philosophy is thus part of the problem, but not the only part. A large part of the crisis of philosophy was initiated by philosophers themselves. Without really defusing the force of these critiques, philosophy will never have the conceptual apparatus with which to once again have the relationship to life that enables it to deal with its core problems.
Re J:"Out of curiosity, which lines of philosophy would you consider most useful to this end?"
By "this end," are you speaking of the end of creating responsible citizens, or the end of creating the kind of trans-disciplinary rational platform I was talking about? If the former, then all of philosophy has something to teach. If the latter, then Neo-Kantian philosophy, with its descriptive analysis of the architectonic, logically ultimate forms of thought (or what was traditionally called the a priori).
J. wrote: "Martin,So you are saying;
1.) Great burden
2.) Change is needed
3.) Buy my book to find out how."
Point three is incorrect. You asked me whether I have anything of my own to add. I gave you a summary of my position and referred you to a free of charge excerpt of my book viewable at http://www.palioxis.com/philosophy. This excerpt explains the summarization in my comment in more and entire detail. No purchase is necessary or suggested.
Elena, regarding your comments:1. "I am wondering though, what do you think about positivists who believe that philosophy should be replaced by the human sciences in determining "what ought to be?"
I think "what ought to be" should be a decision individuals and societies should derive under recognition of "what is" as revealed by inquiries into natural science (see also my answer in 2.).
2. "... just reading this introduction, I can't tell if the book attempts a full analysis as to how philosophy got to such a marginal place on the intellectual scene."
My book does not purport to undertake such a full analysis. Rather, it develops a philosophy that enables individuals and societies to determine "what ought to be." It deals with an educated autonomization and democratization of philosophy. Professional philosophy can be helpful and might be essential in that undertaking. The excerpt constitutes most of what the book states about professional philosophy, and the excerpt focuses on describing the state of philosophy and ways to move forward.
Elena, the questions you raise as to how academic philosophy got to this stage are important to ask, and I think your considerations are eminently insightful. I think they should be placed in front of academic philosophers to reflect critically on their ways. The depth of your comments makes me wonder whether you are working on something that tells the story. I also would be interested to hear how you see the chances that analysis like yours will change professional philosophers' minds. Do you think it might be necessary, after a valiant try, to not waste further efforts on changing calcified structures and to instead build alternative philosophic institutions with academics capable of effective self-criticism?
Martin, thanks again for your kind words. I am not working on this issue, but have throughout the past couple of years been troubled by it and have collected remarks from other thinkers that could help me shed some light on this issue. I have been troubled because, quite frankly, I felt like some kind of freak of nature to be interested in things that other people find uninteresting, while finding uninteresting the things that are officially deemed to be of the highest importance. I reasoned to myself, after a certain point, that there must be something not just freakish about the constitution of my mind that I should have these interests, but that perhaps academic institutions are set up in such a way as to encourage the development of certain interests to the detriment of others. Attending classes, particularly in philosophy, was disappointing to me. In science classes, one can be content with skipping discussions of principles and just go on to the "important" task of memorizing the models that are currently in favour. I felt I learnt something there. The models were never final and were deeply fallible, but still, one felt one was casting some feeble, however flickering light on the world with them. One simply expected the next model would cast a steadier glow.
You can't go to philosophy, though, without discussing the most foundational problems, such as the nature of reason, the principles of the understanding, the question of first philosophy, the nature of symbol and of symbolic form, etc. If all of philosophy and indeed of thought is conducted using reason and symbolic form, then you'd think these issues would be prioritized for study. They were hardly ever touched; school was a matter of fruitlessly rehashing the same tired old discussions of God vs nature, free will vs determinism, science vs the humanities, etc etc. One became rewarded for regurgitating the views of past philosophers and for developing hairsplitting analytical chops; developing the capacity for rational insight into identifying the foundational problems wasn't important. I got the message: institutional philosophy does not see it profitable to poke at foundational issues; look elsewhere for that.
to the question "is philosophy dead?" I would answer quite frankly "Not really". philosophy is not dead, but it is not what it was either. I believe that nowadays philosophy have found 'allies' to strengthen it; not that philosophy short and pure is useless, it's just that the time necessitates a more interrelated discipline. Maybe I am wrong, but I'm more inclined to investigate philosophy as a component of a vaster terrain.
Elena, do you know the Steve Jobs saying about what type of people change the world?"Regurgitating" and "hair splitting" are in my opinion apt descriptions. I went through a similar experience.
I think as well that it is important to ask what the basis for human rationality is. There are technical issues of how our rational brain works and how it can be an accurate reflection and correlation of matters inside and outside it. This has been asked since antiquity but because of our still medieval understanding of brain functions not sufficiently answered. The thing is right there - and we cannot figure out how it works. We only say we do if we can trace very basic parts of it.
We also have to be careful about rationalizations skewed by our mindsets.
Can a defective or insufficient thinking mechanism realize that it is defective or insufficient?
Don't need to go any further than me to answer that one. My thinking mechanism is pretty clearly both defective and insufficient. I've known it for years.
Duffy, such an opinion shows that you have the capability of looking beyond and realize that something is wrong or missing. That indicates that you possess more capacity than you might admit.
Martin, do you believe that understanding the basis of rationality can ultimately be a purely empirical matter? I know that our current intellectual milieu has little appreciation for theoretical rationality; we denigrate it as "armchair theorizing" (even though nobody seems to apply the same term to crazy speculative cosmologies founded on the slightest shred of evidence, like multiverse theories, or to mathematics itself, which is a fabrication of pure reason). Above, I wrote a bit about the crucial role of cognitive science as a tool that philosophy can use to increase its self-understanding. Now however, I think that a large part of the work has to be purely theoretical and phenomenological in the Kantian sense. Cognitive science captures, in Chalmers' terms, the 3rd person POV of mind; phenomenological, critical philosophy is a descriptive psychology of the structures of rationality as they appear from the 1st person POV. The two seem complementary.
"Can a defective or insufficient thinking mechanism realize that it is defective or insufficient?"
That seems to be the million dollar question that our whole epistemological turn in philosophy seems to beg; everything turns on our metacognitive ability to reflect and modify our own thinking, but presumably there are limits to our autopoietic ability. The question is where they lie. There was also Wittgenstein's poignant question about the limits of thought: "How can you find the limits without being outside the limits?"
Still, the epistemological question seems to still be primary, because without knowing that through which all else is known (and distorted), we really can't tell which are the "rationalizations skewed by our mindsets."
Martin, it looks to me like you are saying something akin to: "Only the true Messiah denies his own divinity." Sure its possible for someone to be dumb as a post an unaware of it. But its also not uncommon for people to be aware of their limitations. They might not be able to define them precisely, but knowing that they are there? Happens all the time. I can't tell you how many people I know who say that they are bad at math, for example.
Ontic Neo-Rationality dancing here.Brilliant soul-particles spread head-long
in and along side space-time
illogically logic-filled
epistemologically climbing
rising in the omni-potential multi-verse
Being Self imposed, as particular "beingness"
A Priori 100,000,000th of a second after
Now known as unKnowable Now
Being Αυτή τη στιγμή,
Hic nunc, right now
Know-where to run to
Now-Here to hide
I think he wants to make his book popular by mentioning that statement
Also its not true dat if philosophy is dead God is dead
Duffy: I think we are saying very much the same thing. Plenty of people realize their limitations - and I think that's good. Admitting limitations is a necessary measure because it helps us define a hindrance that we might try to overcome. At the very least,realizing our limitations assists our sense of reality and makes us choose our battles.
Elena: Would you agree that the first part of your last comment about the basics of rationality is covered by our discussion in the "Why do we pursue philosophy?" thread about that subject starting on April 10 (https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...)?Would you agree that Duffy hits the nail on the head when she refers to the difficulty of defining limitations precisely. That seems to be in their nature because we can only insufficiently see beyond, take a position there, and look back. I think the advancement of philosophy like any other thought is limited by our being caught within ourselves individually and as a species. After we make sense of more immediate circumstances, we eventually push against the limits of what we can fathom or even imagine. Admitting this difficulty is absolutely crucial for making any inroads into the unknown.
I believe Bertrand Russell described the conundrum of advanced thought beautifully when he stated something to the effect that the trouble with the world is that the dumb and fanatic are absolutely certain of their positions while the more thoughtful are full of doubt.
It's a shame that the dumb and fanatic folks marginalized Heraclitus, killed Socrates, nearly killed Aristotle, murdered Boethius etc. etc.I think it's fair to say that Heidegger covered much of this same ground in his criticisms and evaluations of Kant. The strangely elusive ontological limitations of "Dasien"? It didn't seem to stop him from falling in with the Nazi party though.
Is Philosophy dead? Not the dumb and fanatic kind I can assure you of that. Do I wish for a better Locke, J.S. Mill, Rousseau, Tolstoy, Gandhi- maybe I do, but then again he or she might just come along and get themselves killed for "Philosophizing"--
Maybe sitting around pretending I understand everything Slavoj Žižek is saying will have to suffice. I like the idea of going to parties and telling people how interested I am in reading Emmanuel Levinas; might be fun. I could make the declaration and then watch to see what happens. I'm relatively certain it would clear the room.
I can just see the newly minted professors, their doctoral dissertations still fresh in their minds, rushing to their local fraternity houses to try this one out-
The point is this: Get brave Philosophers, because the only other choices are indoctrination, or ideology. You are the only proof that Philosophy isn't dead- YOU, and the students you leave behind after you're gone.
Math or no math 1-1=0
Most of reality is not advanced thought but a flailing and potentially malignant uncertainty.
The youth of today needs you more than ever.
Hopefully your first steps to reach them won't be Aristotelian Metaphysics, or Heidegger's "Sien und Zeit"
Philosophy
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I would agree with you that there may be dangers in confusing what science and philosophy can achieve. However I would be very wary of any artificial complete opposition ..."
Hi David, thanks for your post. I completely agree with your following statement: "We all expect from scientist, before they make any scientistic affirmation, to develop the proper knowledge and the correspondent investigations, which implies a complete dedication for many years, if not for life. On the other hand, many feel free, as of course they should, to make philosophical affirmations without developing the proper knowledge nor the correspondent investigations. When this happens, philosophical views are often predetermined by science or religion, but not by philosophy itself."
I fully agree that philosophy has the dignity of a complete discipline; probably, I might say in my humble opinion, even more dignity than other fields of knowledge. On the other hand, I have the perception that, especially in the last 50 to 70 years, philosophy has tended more and more to become the field of an ever more restricted set of specialist practitioners, concentrating on very technical and specialist fields of investigation, adopting an ever more specialist language, and bypassing or neglecting fundamental areas such as epistemology and cognitive science(as highlighted by Elena), areas that, by the way, are as important as ever even to science, especially considering the epistemological issues highlighted by the most recent scientific discoveries in areas such as Quantum Physics.
Unfortunately I feel that philosophy is progressively losing its connections to the other realms of human knowledge, so in my opinion philosophy is not dead, it is as important as ever, and it has a lot to say, but it is running the risk of killing itself.
On the other hand, I also agree with your statement "Philosophy, be that what it may, is anything but easy, and Mr. Hawking, as we see convinced that philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, could also ask himself if he has kept up with philosophy, modern, ancient or from any time".
Certainly philosophy is not easy, it requires lots of dedication and effort; I personally find philosophy as mentally rewarding but also as challenging and demanding as other areas that I love (such as science and mathematics). However I have also the feeling that philosophy has not made it easy, for anybody who is not a practitioner, to "connect" with it. And this does not apply only to the general public, but also to the specialist communities in the other areas of human knowledge (not just science). By its very nature, philosophy MUST be connected with, and alert to, the developments of human knowledge in all fields, and I am not sure that this has been happening for quite some time.