"Philosophy is dead"

[Skallagrimsen]

Philosophy is alive. It will live on (at least) as long as humans do. We are the philosophizing animal, condemned to philosophize, whether poorly, indifferently, or well; it's intrinsic to the nature of our minds. Hawking's statement, assuming it wasn't intended as rhetorical hyperbole, betrays a lack of understanding as to what philosophy is. He seems to be equating philosophy with metaphysics, specifically with ancient metaphysical speculations that, he believes, have been superseded by the modern scientific understanding of cosmology. He might be right about that. He might not be. For all we know, five hundred years from now, say, humans might, with good reason, regard Hawking's model as obsolete as we now regard the Ptolemaic. But even if he is right, he still seems to be mistaking one facet of philosophy for the whole. What does physics have to say about ethics, politics, or aesthetics? How does it supplant epistemology?

[Hike]

Skallagrimsen: Your observation that humans philosophize is dead on. Not alone because the human mind thinks, but as well because, being self-aware, we are naturally introspective in one degree or other. I admit in these statements lies embedded a certain understanding of "mind" and for me this goes at least as deep as Schopenhauer's observation that we are the subject of our ideas. And perhaps embraces Descartes "Cogito ergo sum." Mind - certainly with regard to our human form and our propensity to question why, how, and what - is aware through conscious content or call them ideas or words. Mind for me is that living spark of awareness that incessantly dances over conscious content. Now, what in my view makes Hawking's thought rather immature is this: he leans to the reductionist proposition that time passes, whereas it is clear that experience passes but time does not. It is always now. Time as it is naturally conceived is actually a measure of our becoming. History itself is merely a record of this progress, a progress gathered by mind and invested in memory. The past and the future are modes of mind utilized toward contextualizing experience. Furthermore, in the modern scientific paradigm to which Hawking adhered, space is something which has inappropriately been granted an objective existence. Since Kant's "Transcendental Aesthetic" any thinker with philosophical depth admits that space (as well as time's abstraction as passing moments) appends the observing mind. Quite simply, Kant revolutionized the philosophy of science, but few practitioners of science seem to pay any heed to his grasp of how the mind works to physically represent ideas when they are thought. In other words, the physical realm is like a passing phantasm. We would know what is ultimately real - even as we observe change all around us. Henri Bergson understood this in himself and was inspired to imagine the cinematographical mechanism of mind. Mind - or spirit or living consciousness - is the often sought-after "thing-in-itself," the ultimate reality we can know.

[Skallagrimsen]

Hike: If I understand you, your claim is that time and space are modes of mental perception, not objective, extrinsic realities. I'm familiar with this idea--the primacy of Mind--; the first time I ever heard it articulated, I remembered it as an idea I'd arrived at independently, in an inchoate form, in some of my earliest conscious thoughts, before I'd been habituated by experience to take any of these concepts for granted or acquired a vocabulary sufficient to express them. (I don't think this is uncommon; I'd bet it's more the rule than the exception, that humans tend to such philosophizing in early childhood.) I would not go so far as to insist primacy of Mind is correct. It might be. It might not. I don't know, and I'm skeptical that I can know. For the purpose of this discussion, I'm content with pointing out that Hawking, as brilliant as he undoubtedly was, seems to have been operating with a deficient definition of philosophy.

[Hike]

Yes, I mean exactly that. Space and time are modalities of the percipient being. They have no objective physical qualities. We humans are not IN the world but the world is of the perceiving mind, IN US, so the speak. We all know this but have been led to deny it. Such is the price of admission into physical human life. Before we become acculturated, to utilize J. C. Pearce's term, and adapt ourselves to our society's prevailing philosophy through language and social patterns, we know better and can "see beyond" the rationalized facts of human existence. Psychology teaches of a threshold of adaptation occurring around age six. Before that time, we are far more creative and unconstrained, understanding things for what they are directly, as one would be who is outside all the baloney which comes intrinsically in education. Later on if any wisdom be gained through and well past formal education, we reach that simpler more direct comprehension once again. But we must struggle continuously to regain that former perspective. That is the duty of philosophy - to supply a rational basis for rethinking what we think we know. Too often some of the most brilliant individuals stop short of that simpler understanding. Along the way they become sidetracked by lofty intellectual pursuits such as law, medicine, politics, or something more esoteric, such as art, or mathematical or physical theory for instance. In other words, by buying into the "standard" philosophy of the human condition many are lost. A perfect example is the learned physicist who pursues the quest of a physical explanation for physical creation. (There isn't one.) And here is also an instance of stunted philosophy. Stunted by indoctrination. My larger point is this: any world-view is rooted in some philosophy or other. In conclusion, I would think Hawking denied the efficacy of that philosophy which merges into metaphysics. But the very philosophy in which his science was rooted is that same metaphysics he seemed to disparage. It is so tempting to ignore how the mind works and just take for granted whatever we are taught. Each of us creates his own reality. That is the wondrous magic of living consciousness.

[Hike]

Addendum: Of course you can know whether the primacy of mind is a feasible proposition! Examine your own existence, examine how the mind works, ask yourself what it is to know, to be an alive and conscious entity.

[Skallagrimsen]

I think I allowed it's a feasible proposition, just not a certain one. It might be for someone wiser than myself. I speak only to the limits of my own understanding.

[Hike]

It seems to me true that we know our ideas and not "things" directly. Perception is so immediate that we mistake resultant things as reality. By their being results, things have already become ensconced in the past. As Schopenhauer put it, the world is my idea. Therefore in this light it appears to me that the primacy of mind is proven; that is, mind and living consciousness are more immediately real than our perceptions of things, for perception ensues from attending energized conscious content (sensory data).

[Skallagrimsen]

Or as George Berkeley put it: "A man born blind, being made to see, would at first have not idea of distance by sight; the sun and stars, the remotest objects as well as the nearer, would all seem to be in his eye, or rather in his mind. The objects intromitted by sight would seem to him (as in truth they are) no other than a new set of thoughts or sensations, each whereof is as near to him as the perception of pain or pleasure or the most inward passions of the soul. For our judging objects perceived by sight to be at any distance, or without the mind, is entirely the effect of experience."

I understand the claim. I know I experience the world as idea (or representation, as Schopenhauer puts it in some translations). I get that I don't perceive things (or "things," if you will) in their noumenal essence, only their phenomenal appearance, to put it in Kant's terms. What I don't know, and don't know how I can know, is whether the ideas I perceive with my senses as the world correspond to a reality external to my own mind. I believe they do, and I hope so, too. But how can I know?

[Dena]

One need only survey all the recently published books and scholarly articles / journals of philosophy to see that philosophy is not dead and also is very much focused on exploring hard and relevant questions faced by today's society.

I would say that when it comes to the majority of the population philosophy has become an obscure and often unexplored subject. I am saddened it is not part of the core curriculum in elementary and high school. People need to learn how to think, reason, debate and explore arguments.

These days with social media, it's rare to see a well reasoned argument for or against a hot button topic. It's just a pile of reacting. Reacting positively or negatively and scrolling by OR, stopping quickly to toss in something inflammatory, like ad hominem, and then peace out.

[Skallagrimsen]

Part of the problem, I think, is a lack of understanding of what philosophy is. My impression is that people often think philosophy is synonymous with ancient metaphysical speculations, which they believe have been superceded by modern physics. There is much more to philosophy than that. I would argue that philosophy is only growing in relevance as our species enters the uncharted and radically transformative Transhuman Era. What kind of creatures are we? What kind should, or can we be? How will human cognition cohabitate with A.I.? What will gene editing mean for human reproduction? How can we avoid destroyng ourselves with environmental degradation or nuclear weapons? Every profound and inescapable question arising from technological evolution is a philosophical question. Philosophy is not an obsolete, nor an extravagance, but a necessary byproduct of our minds. We can philosophize poorly or well, but not philosophizing is not an option, even if we tried.

[Anna]

I think more people confuse philosophy with logic.

[Skallagrimsen]

I'd call logic a philosophical tool, part of philosophy, but not synonymous with it, any more than Italy is synonymous with Europe.

[Rhonda]

Skallagrimsen wrote: "Part of the problem, I think, is a lack of understanding of what philosophy is."
Indeed, this appears to be from one or two things: either we have failed to define what philosophy is or we have manipulated the meaning to appear to become everything for everyone. I remember a certain well known university's philosophy department some years back having public discussions on the legitimacy of sexual attractions of women, something which puzzled me greatly. I would guess that this same department might now be discussing the legitimacy of transgenderism now, but then I say this tongue in cheek.
A greater difficulty with philosophy seems to be something I discovered last year at the end of a course on Modern Western Philosophy wherein I noticed considerable disappointment that philosophy was not giving the answers some students desired. Indeed, one adult student complained that each philosopher appeared to disagree with the next and so on, never coming to a conclusion. Do we desire conclusions? It is fair to say that physics develops conclusions, even if they may be overturned only a few years later. One might say that the curious issue is why this never bothers them, but then I digress.
I tend to think the complexity of the world, at least the ideas to which we are constantly exposed, creates a sense of frustration in those who would read philosophy. I find it ironic in that we have made great efforts at condensing our knowledge of things while the things to which we would enjoy applying knowledge has been expanding. The more we try to pin down exactly how we ought to relate righteousness to our circumstances, the less we are able to understand much about them.
FWIW, I would also argue that there is no such thing as Artificial Intelligence. There is machine intelligence, which is the effort to pattern reactions to circumstances in the best human manner possible, but it is hardly in any way artificial. The term, "Artificial Intelligence" makes me think of the response of a machine when we cannot locate the code which created the reaction. Socrates would still be smiling.

[Skallagrimsen]

What legitimizes anything? Is legitimacy a legal, social, or personal label, or in some sense a reality?

I noticed considerable disappointment that philosophy was not giving the answers some students desired.

I don't think it's philosophy's job to give you answers, let alone the ones you desire. Philosophy isn't answers, it's questions. It's a method, not a body of dogma. It's process, not revelation. Yes, it's got a history, and studying it will open new avenues to your mind. That's the point, not to study the philosopher who finally found the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and to accept it. It's about how to discover truth for yourself.

Philosophical propositions are just like scientific theories, always provisional. The game will end one day, heat death of the universe et al, but not in my lifetime, or yours, or probably even in the life of human species. Conscious beings a thousand years hence will share our angst about the uncertainty of knowledge. There's no sense in bemoaning it.

I think you are arguing that "artificial intelligence" exists, but is poorly named, and should perhaps be called "machine intelligence." Is that correct?

What is "artificial"? Is "artificiality" a concept that maps on to material reality in some profound sense, or is it a linguistic convenience that sometimes muddles our thinking?

Why would Socrates smile?

[Rhonda]

Skallagrimsen wrote: "I don't think it's philosophy's job to give you answers, let alone the ones you desire."
I agree and therein lies the frustration for many who would discount philosophy as a whole because it does not. In many cases, like one I mentioned, philosophy can be politicized, and it thus delivers the answers to support the ideology. Ho hum!
Yes, I think that artificial intelligence is poorly named. It is, in fact, the embodiment of human intelligence in a machine. I do not dispute the possibility that a machine can synthesize several statements and derive another statement or action from it, but then I have not yet seen this happen the way it is put together. With the rise of computers, even with massively parallel systems, the digital binary system has some severe limitations and I long ago worked on a primitive analog system, which unfortunately was discarded due to the proliferation of digital. Hence we have language like, "On a scale of one to ten, how much pain are you experiencing?" The AI, it would seem, has given us our own language and terminology, rather than something naturally occurring. In short, there is no scale of one to ten in our nature except by the artificial guidelines of digital logic.

Lastly, in writing such programs, something that is long forgotten or largely overlooked in the system design, can raise its head to surprise us after a period of time and we pronounce it learning. As Clarke once said, and I think it was his third law, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I think that this is something Socrates would probably have understood and that is the reason he would probably smile.

As to the legitimization of anything, it should first have a foundation and that, in itself, has been a source of contention for ages. Personally, I rather like medieval philosophy in this regard, Duns Scotus in particular: one is never in doubt about the foundation, but the development of method is a work of art.

[Skallagrimsen]

Thank you for that explanation. It was clear and succinct, and put like that, I agree.

Will Durant finds many modern philosophical ideas prefigured by Scholastic (and Islamic) philosophy; he calls modern thought "a chamber of echoes." I tend to agree.

But what do you mean by "unnatural"? Is "unnatural" a demonstrable quality of thing? Or is it a figure of speech, because humans find it useful, or are habituated, to distinguish between things humans make or do, and all things made or done by other living things or inanimate forces? What distinguishes the natural from the unnatural, and how can it be demonstrated?

[Rhonda]

Skallagrimsen wrote: "But what do you mean by "unnatural"? Is "unnatural" a demonstrable quality of thing?"
Forgive my delay in responding. I was, initially, tempted to give you a rather traditional response, one which might be found in a textbook and regurgitated on a graduate exam paper or an oral examination, suitable for one to be passed...but then again it means nothing unless it's correct. In this respect, modern philosophy respects not so much its wisdom so much as getting along.

There is profound wisdom in medieval philosophical texts, much of which we have appear to have discarded because they are stained with a supreme being, something modern philosophy has ignored or discarded. As to Will Durant, he is much more of an astute mind than most commentary depicts. He had a sharp tongue, and no one was immune from his comments. He and Ariel produced a masterwork, (perhaps two,) albeit one which is a bit short as they came close to moderns.
I think that discussing history and civilization was probably a difficult issue to accept for philosophers who came to be alarmed that Hegel (and reactions to his work,) had occupied a majority of the 19th century. Ariel was no less the scholar and, in part, perhaps exceeded her husband in perspicacity. However, as usual, I digress.
Naturalism has no precise meaning in philosophy as any number of different philosophers have applied it to what they wrote. Imagine, for a second, Dewey and Nagel in the same category and one might suppose the nametags were wrong. Most would say that natural would exclude the supernatural and focuses strictly upon a scientific method, experiments which can be repeated with the same or similar results. I suggest "similar" because, as one knows, repeating a ball rolling down an incline will result in minute differences in the resulting distance measured.
I tend to think that "natural," in the sense that I was intending it, means that which occurs in the world when human beings cease mucking things about. Philosophy attempts to provide explanation for what it finds in the world and it is clear that it often is either inaccurate or incomplete.
When I was in my teens, I believed that, in the modern world, we were finally able to recognize and correct the mistakes of the past, but I soon came to believe that this was supercilious: we appear to make at least as many mistakes as our predecessors who think, (although the number of actual thinkers may be much smaller,) from a particular milieu and social bias, whether we like it or not. Perhaps it is just that the earth has moved on in space and now we are being bombarded by gamma rays which affect our thinking. On the other hand, it might be a preponderance of unnatural sexual proclivity, but again I digress.
While I disagree that "natural" must exclude such issues as God and the supernatural, (mostly, apparently, because God does not perform experiments for us on command,) we recognize such things as physics, chemistry and biology as giving insight to our world, even though we have improved our understanding considerably. Hawking wanted his answers to be absolute. We know they aren't, but at least the physicists could go back to the lab and postulate thigs if they occurred from numbers. In fact, I think his hissy against philosophy was because we don't much use numbers. I have always believed that numbers were real.
Personally, while I understand the necessity of establishing certain laws by which we govern our understanding, we tend to postulate great generalities such as humanism and especially, evolution. I have a biology professor friend, a staunch humanist and hater of all things of God, who savagely defends evolution on the basis of there being only one chromosome difference between man and ape. I make him angry when I ask him to show the development of a new species given what he thinks he knows of human history.
In my estimation, the evolution argument has more holes than Swiss cheese, especially when one takes into account how the adaptation process might occur over tremendous amounts of time. However, by and large, it does get rid of God, which was probably the great effort of the 19th century. To quote Feuerback, ironically, "Der Mensch ist, was er isst“ We are, inevitably, the product of that which we consume.

Descartes wanted to erase all the prejudices from his mind before he began. The story goes that he crawled into a great oven for some time in order to clear his mind. You have to admire the effort as I am sure you have seen the videos of what happens in a modern sensory deprivation chamber. Even so, (and I used to do homework in the middle of the night for the same reason,) you can only clear your mind of so much and you are still left with prejudices that certain people are better than other people and a certain football team should win a particular or series of games.
Hence to the question of the unnatural: can the unnatural ever occur even if it is an unmitigated disaster of cloning human beings? Is such a thing as altering our DNA a natural or unnatural thing or act? I tend to argue that it is unnatural because it alters a naturally occurring thing or activity.
One might point out that God often makes errors in naturally occurring births by creating, for example, a hole in its heart or similar malady, but I would argue that this is unnatural on the basis that the design of the product is not suitable for normalized living conditions. In other words, you don't remain alive or you don't live in accordance with a model of biological design. Hence, as a definition, I think I would argue that something is unnatural if it takes the model of a naturally occurring thing or event and adulterates itself, by causes we may either understand or not understand.
Apologies for the length.

[Skallagrimsen]

@Rhonda,

We part company on evolution. I regard it as the best, and indeed only known coherent theory for the origin and behavior of species. I am not, however, a humanist, or if I am, then a very mild and ambivalent one. But I think I'd be better described as an a-humanist. At any rate, I'm far from a hater of all things God driven to savagely defend evolution. The development of new species seems to me amply documented by the fossil record. It's precisely because evolutionary development takes place over tremendous amounts of time that it took us so long to discover its mechanism.

But it doesn't make me mad if you or anyone else doesn't believe we're cousins of monkeys. I don't expect everyone to believe it. Many intelligent people do not. I'm far from certain, on the whole, humans are wired to believe it. I'm far from certain that belief in evolution is even evolutionarily adaptive. "The truth shall set us free" is a Christian idea, one of many that humanists, amusingly, seem to have internalized, so thoroughly they can't see its theistic origins. The evangelists of humanism, in its various offshoots, more resemble Christians than they have the self-awareness to perceive. And while humanists usually affirm evolution, they also, like many Christians, poorly understand it, and often reject its implications.

I'd also question whether evolution even gets rid of God. A literal interpretation of, say, Genesis, sure. But God? God and evolution seem perfectly combatable to me. Evolution could be God's method, the process whereby He (She/It/They) sculpt genetic (and perhaps also spiritually infused) putty into the living forms of the world. I've met many thoughtful people who saw no contradiction in believing both.

You ask if altering DNA is a natural or unnatural act, and answer "it is unnatural because it alters a naturally occurring thing or activity.” You reiterate "that something is unnatural if it takes the model of a naturally occurring thing or event and adulterates itself, by causes we may either understand or not understand."

It seems to me you're begging the question. Is lighting a fire unnatural? Agriculture? Animal husbandry? Whetting a flint knife? Making papyrus? Inventing an alphabet? Grinding a lens? If so, why? If not, then neither is genetic engineering. The ability of humans to alter DNA is just the deep extension of such practices and technologies. On a geological scale, it was a series of quick incremental steps from one to the Stone Age to the Space Age. The distinction between the simplest and most advanced tech is one, not of kind, but of degree. Where is the boundary between nature and "unnature" and how do you know where it is?

I'd argue that "unnatural" is a linguistic habit, or convenience, rooted in an imaginary dualism between humanity and the rest of nature. That the concept doesn't map on to reality in a meaningful way. That it's a tautology that confuses our thinking.

As Love and Rockets put it, "You cannot go against nature/because if you do/go against nature/it's part of nature too."

@Chemison,

While I do not believe in gods or ghosts either, I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say they could not logically exist. I'm content to say there is no evidence or reason to believe in them, that I'm aware of.

[Skallagrimsen]

Gods and ghosts do have causal relations, according to those who believe in them. They can be seen or felt when they manifest on earth, say believers. The world is other than it would be if they didn't exist, say believers, because gods or ghosts, like men and mosquitoes, are agents that act upon the world.

I don't find the evidence of gods or ghosts credible either. I agree they have the hallmarks of emotional and credulous primate psychology. But the existence of energies and entities that science has yet to detect doesn't seem logically impossible to me.

[Diamond]

https://youtu.be/l9SqQNgDrgg

[Frank]

The idea that philosophy is dead (by that, I assume one means it's no longer useful) is silly. Some of the greatest minds have felt that way, including some of my favorite thinkers; e.g. Neil deGrasse Tyson. But even great minds can sometimes get stuck in narrow thinking. A scientist gets stuck in science. So anything else is not worth studying or learning about, such as ethics and politics. As Joe would say, "c'mon man!" You can still be a scientist without adhering to "scientism."

[Skallagrimsen]

Modern physicists seem particularly prone to declaring philosophy dead. This thread began, almost 13 years ago(!), with this statement by Stephen Hawking:

Living in this vast world that is by turns kind and cruel, and gazing at the immense heavens above, people have always asked a multitude of questions: How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a creator? Most of us do not spend most of our time worrying about these questions, but almost all of us worry about them some of the time.
Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.

I didn't know that Neil deGrasse Tyson had similarly dismissed philosophy, but I'm not surprised by it, either. (I say this as one who also likes and admires Tyson.) Even if traditional metaphysical speculations and theories about the origin and nature of reality are obsolete (and even that is questionable), there's much more to philosophy than ontology; it's a branch of philosophy, not the whole of it. How has modern physics superseded ethics? How could it? What does it have to say about epistemology, politics, or aesthetics? Modern physicists too often seem to have a deficient definition of philosophy.

It seems worth noting that at least one far greater physicist than Hawking, let alone Tyson, lacked this disdain for philosophy. Albert Einstein frankly acknowledged the influence of Spinoza, Kant, and Schopenhauer, among other philosophers, on the formation of his scientific imagination.

[Rhonda]

Skallagrimsen wrote: "Modern physicists seem particularly prone to declaring philosophy dead. This thread began, almost 13 years ago(!), with this statement by Stephen Hawking: ..."

I think it is all too easy for scientists to declare that philosophy is dead. There is no doubt that, to a person, they believe that philosophy lacks precision and creates many arguments which seem contrived, but, in any case, philosophical arguments fail to yield a result which appears to help mankind. The case against philosophy is a good one, especially in modernity. First, everyone appears to believe himself to be a philosopher while it requires a significant amount of training to declare one to be a mathematician or a physicist. This doesn't mean that one is a good mathematician or physicist, but it seems like a good starting point. Second, everyone who believes himself to be a philosopher appears to be spouting an opinion. The resultant cacophony must be deafening to the scientist.

Science depends on both empiricism and reasoned argument, but it also begins with a certain quantity of stated foundations. In mathematics, for example, an algebraist might not accept the argument of one in analysis because he disagreed on the definitions. All too often, philosophy begins or ignores what things mean, ostensibly because they appear obvious. But historically, philosophy is representative of the changes in social thinking in an age. Scientists say that we have no conclusions which are laws. Philosophy argues that the foundations by which science is written, is severely lacking in foundational explanation.


The issue, considering Hawking at least, is that he doesn't explain the origins of physical principles and doesn't care to explain physical principles upon which his theories actually exist. To philosophy, this should be a cause for objection. He and all the rest of the physicists seem content with giving an example concerning how existence might emerge from nothingness. Philosophy should have objected on this ground rather than try to defend a thousand different positions. The scientists’ argument against philosophy is that no one seems to be able to offer anything but opinions, in which case, the ones the scientists create seem as good as another.

[sandwichwiener]

Steven Hawking is dead.

[Matthew]

Carlo Rovelli has a great piece on Science's necessity of Philosophy.

https://philpapers.org/rec/ROVPNP

One can go back to the 4th century BCE for this very same argument, in Aristotle's Protrepticus, where Aristotle debates Isocrates on the usefulness and practicality of Philosophy in life.

[Stephen]

Science and philosophy interact.

Science means philosophers can no longer make things up, but science needs philosophy to interpret its findings with a human perspective.

[Matthew]

Well, first, Philosophers don't "make things up", Academic Philosophy and Science follow the same principles—you need to postulate your system/theories with "proofs." In the case of science this takes the form of actual proofs published in papers, in Philosophy you publish a thesis or publish a paper.

Second, there are many realms of academic philosophy that have no correlation or interaction with Science, so Philosophy & Philosophers dont "need" science to verify their work.

[Stephen]

Thanks Matthew,
That kind of proves my point. I did say "no longer", meaning older philosophers like Plato etc. As you say, these days you need to take the findings of science into consideration when you 'postulate your system/theories'.
Best wishes,
Stephen

[Peter]

Adeel wrote: "Stephen Hawking, in his latest book, The Grand Design, claims that philosophy is dead:
..."

This tells us that Hawking does not understand philosophy. A poor workman blames his tools. He is right if he is referring to professional academic philosophy, which is clinging to life by a thread, but philosophy is alive and well elsewhere.

Hawking's view is common among those who only know Western philosophy, but a serious philosopher will not restrict their investigation to this sub-field. History shows that philosophers who avoid the study of the Perennial philosophy never come to understand the subject, and by generalizing their incomprehension to the whole field they reveal the narrowness of their scholarship.

What Hawking says is that the way he does philosophy is dead, and I would agree, but this is not a criticism of philosophy.

[Peter]

Skallagrimsen wrote: "Philosophy isn't answers, it's questions...."

It seems to me that this view is the entire reason why to many people philosophy appears to be dead. This issue deserves a thread of its own. I would argue that philosophy does produce answers, but few people want to hear them. Western philosophy is not dead, I would say, but deaf,.

Happy to expand, but perhaps it's a discussion for another place and time.

[Miles]

This discussion reminds me of the following cartoon I once read.
Nietzsche: God is dead.
God: Nietzsche is dead.

[Scout]

Looking at this group, philosophy may be dead.

[Peter]

Scout wrote: "Looking at this group, philosophy may be dead."

I rather think you ought to explain what you mean here. Some of us are arguing that your view indicates a failure to study the subject, and I'm sure you're not trying to indicate this.

[Davide]

The existence of a group questioning the death of philosophy proves that philosophy is not dead. Unlike silence, which dies the moment someone utters its name, philosophy endures as long as it occupies someone's thoughts.

[Skallagrimsen]

I think the point was hyperbolic. This group is dead, or nearly. The frequency, thoroughness, and vigor of the comments seemed greater in years past. Scroll way up and see if you don't agree.

[Miles]

Skallagrimsen wrote: "I think the point was hyperbolic. This group is dead, or nearly. The frequency, thoroughness, and vigor of the comments seemed greater in years past. Scroll way up and see if you don't agree."

I agree with Scout and Skallagrimsen. Philosophy is far from dead, but it is definitely hard to find it in contemporary practice.

[J.]

Miles wrote: "I agree with Scout and Skallagrimsen. Philosophy is far from dead, but it is definitely hard to find it in contemporary practice."

Is there a dearth of philosophical thought in public discourse, or is a lack of people quoting Wittgenstein triggering our confirmation bias?

[Skallagrimsen]

Philosophy thrives on Youtube. There are many channels devoted to it, either to the discipline in general, or to some specialized niche within it. Some of them are quite good. Certain philosophies, like stoicism, are trendy now; others, like transhumanism or anti-natalism are gaining adherents. Where philosophy isn't thriving is here on Goodreads. It seems there was a more robust philosophical culture here in the past. Its members appear to have moved on to other venues.

[Scout]

Your final 3 sentences are what I was addressing with my comment.

[Miles]

J. wrote: "Miles wrote: "I agree with Scout and Skallagrimsen. Philosophy is far from dead, but it is definitely hard to find it in contemporary practice."

Is there a dearth of philosophical thought in publi..."

I struggle to understand how quoting Wittgenstein factors into this conversation. In my professional community, anti-intellectualism predominates. The people in my immediate surroundings have little-to-no tolerance for philosophical thought. Is confirmation bias the only possible explanation for this observation?

[J.]

Miles wrote: "I struggle to understand how quoting Wittgenstein factors into this conversation. In my professional community, anti-intellectualism predominates. The people in my immediate surroundings have little-to-no tolerance for philosophical thought. Is confirmation bias the only possible explanation for this observation?"

Isn't Anti-intellectualism a materialist philosophy which disdains those who use a polysyllabic vocabulary as a narcissistic crutch. (I know.) It seems to me, if you remove some of the cosmopolitan elements of Stoicism, you'd be well into the moral structure to which most of your Anti-intellectual peers aspire.

[Scout]

If you guys want to prove philosophy isn't dead, why don't you participate in discussions here? I'd love to know more about philosophy, which is why I joined this group. And then I found that there's no interest in having discussions. Why even have a philosophy group if you just ignore it?

[Skallagrimsen]

@Scout, this thread is almost 15-years old. Maybe anything anyone could think to say about the alleged death of philosophy was already said on it.

My view, contrary to Stephen Hawking's, is that philosophy is very much alive. I'd even argue that philosophy becomes ever more relevant the further we move into the transhuman era. The ever-novel, always shifting circumstances in which we now find ourselves demands a robust and creative philosophy if humanity is to even hope to make sense of them. Our very survival may depend on it. At the very least, our quality of life will.

But while philosophy might not be dead, on Goodreads it does seem--if not quite dead yet--then rather moribund. The philosophers, it seems, have mostly moved on to other venues.

[Scout]

Thanks for your thoughtful response. What are those venues?

[Skallagrimsen]

Thank you for calling my response thoughtful. I don't know the answer to your question though. Maybe the philosophers moved on to the comment threads of the thriving Youtube philosophy scene. But it's hard to sustain a good conversation there amidst the sludge of commentary. Or maybe they went to Reddit? I wouldn't know, as I'm allergic to that site. If you do find the venue(s), I'd appreciate you letting me know.

But in the meantime, there's no reason in principle the Goodreads philosophical scene couldn't be revived. Lots of intelligent thoughtful people already contribute to this site. Maybe the key lies in proposing dynamic new topics, rather than adding comments to ancient threads.

[Peter]

Desgreene wrote: "Stephen wrote: "If the Popperian criterion of 'falsifiability' were applied to philosophical hypotheses then not one would pass through the net...."

Do you not consider reducing an hypothesis to absurdity a falsification?

I think most people would, and we must if we want to make sense of philosophy. .