About Rationally Speaking


Rationally Speaking is a blog maintained by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York. The blog reflects the Enlightenment figure Marquis de Condorcet's idea of what a public intellectual (yes, we know, that's such a bad word) ought to be: someone who devotes himself to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them." You're welcome. Please notice that the contents of this blog can be reprinted under the standard Creative Commons license.

Sunday, January 09, 2011

Considering some objections to philosophy

by Michael De Dora
I am a student of political philosophy, and more specifically a person interested in the intersection of political and moral life. This has placed me in the middle of numerous conversations about the nature of politics and morality. But it has also forced me into discussions on why I care about such subjects at all. Indeed, people often tell me that my interest in philosophy is weird. They tell me that while I might enjoy philosophy, it is an esoteric and useless enterprise.
Before moving on, I should define philosophy. For this, I reference Massimo (note that this is an abbreviation of his definition): “An activity that uses reason to explore issues that include the nature of reality (metaphysics), structure of rational thinking (logic), limits of our understanding (epistemology), meaning implied by our thoughts (philosophy of language), nature of moral good (ethics), nature of beauty (aesthetics), and inner workings of other disciplines (science, history, and more).” In short: reason-based conceptual analysis of the human experience.
To be sure, many objections to philosophy have been put forth. Some have already been discussed in books, or elsewhere on this blog, such as “philosophy doesn't make progress” (here), “we don't need philosophy, we have science” (here and here), and “philosophers wrongly want to exclude or downplay the role of emotion” (here). I only hope this essay is a constructive addition to this existing catalogue.
Objection 1: Philosophy deals not with practical (and thus important) matters, but with theory. We should be concerned with what's actually going on down here on Earth.
Response: On its face, this is a disingenuous criticism. Many other fields of study, such as science, are characterized in great degree by a lack of apparent “practical” appeal. Just ask Massimo about some of his graduate students' lab projects. Why single out philosophy?
More to the point, this objection is a misunderstanding of philosophy and its link to everyday matters; or, more specifically, the relationship between reasoning and practice. Philosophy is the critical study of what is going on down here on Earth. While it is largely about abstract reasoning, one cannot so easily separate this from practice. Philosophy studies whether practical matters are being carried out as they should be, or whether a certain practice ought to be continued in the future. It helps us formulate a more rational and consistent view of the world. For an example of this relationship between reasoning and practice, consider that the philosophical discourse on morality over the past 2,500 years has undoubtedly furthered our understanding of how to live better with one another. In short, our practice can only be improved by our theoretical reasoning about the practice.
Objection 2: Philosophy too often focuses on splitting fine hairs. Who cares about the details?
Response: The fact is that details can often make all the difference in our reasoning, beliefs, and decisions. For example, consider the debates over what is really science and what is really art. Why does any of this matter? Why can't we just get on with our lives? Well, you can get on with your life, but the distinctions matter. At the very least, they matter to public understanding, funding for research, and university departments. Or consider how different people can come to the same conclusions for different reasons. Imagine two medical doctors going to Africa to help the disadvantaged. One is going because his empathy tells him this is a good thing to do; the other is going because he believes it is God’s will. Both people are making quite a sacrifice, which should be respected as such. But doesn’t the motive also affect our understanding of what they do, and perhaps how they do it?
I think details can be seen as a form of context. They provide us a deeper understanding of the issue at hand. Consider the statement “killing other people is wrong.” Details make all the difference here, as some instances of killing are not wrong (self defense being the obvious example).
Or ponder a topic dear to my heart: batting in the sport of baseball. Many people judge a batter’s worth on basic statistics. These might include batting average, home runs, and runs batted in. Yet these numbers are subject to the whims of luck and setting, so it is important to look at what we might call the statistical details. For instance, instead of merely looking at batting average, we would also study a player’s batting average on balls in play (since the player doesn’t have full control over where the ball drops or where the defender is; a high number suggests good luck, while a low number suggests poor luck). We would also look at the player’s on-base percentage, which provides a more illustrative account of the player’s ability to not get out (i.e., his ability to draw walks). Instead of just looking at a player’s home runs, we would also see whether he hits in a ballpark friendly to home runs (baseball is unlike other sports in that the fields vary in size and structure), and look at his splits (did he hit many more home runs on the road than home?). And instead of looking merely at runs batted in, we would look at the rest of the lineup in which he was hitting (was he hitting in a spot before great hitters? Was he hitting in a high-scoring offense generally?) All of these stats together would give us a better idea of whether a player is actually very good, or is to some degree lucky or dependent on the rest of his team or ballpark. Perhaps now you see why the details, or context, can be absolutely important, not just in philosophy.
Objection 3: Philosophy can be hard to understand! Haven’t you ever tried to read Immanuel Kant?
Response: My immediate response is that of course philosophy can be hard to understand — but so can all intellectually serious subjects. Again, why pick on philosophy?
Now, I have read some of the works by Immanuel Kant, and I cannot lie (no pun intended!) and say they were thoroughly enjoyable. But I read them because I get enjoyment from challenging my ability to think deeply. I also considered it a sacrifice for a greater benefit waiting at the end of the tunnel, like a greater understanding of morality.
You still might not be ready to run out to Barnes & Noble to buy the complete works of Kant, but then again, nobody is telling you to spend your life reading original philosophical work. The point here is that not all philosophy reads like Kant. For instance, if you want an accessible account of Kant’s moral theory, you can pick up Michael Sandel's book Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? Though you might find your comprehension of Kant's ideas would be deeper by reading the primary source, you need not do so to understand and gain insight from his ideas.
Objection 4: Philosophy rarely, if ever, provides us with definite Knowledge (as opposed to what we might call reasonable knowledge, with a lower-case k).
Response: Philosophy alone might rarely provide Knowledge, but why blame philosophy for something it isn’t quite meant to produce by itself? This objection sets up a straw man, for philosophy is not meant to function like mathematics (logic) or science (empirical verification). It is meant to function more like, well, philosophy.
For instance, math tells us 2+2=4. Science tells us the universe is about 14.6 billion years old. These are based on logic and empirical evidence, respectively. What does philosophy tell us about how to live a moral life? It turns out the answer is not so concrete: a number of different philosophers over the past 2,500 years have weighed in on the question and provided a range of considerations. This is because answers to questions like “how do I live a moral life?” do not come in the guise of a formula or empirical data. Math and science tell us what are logically or empirically true, regardless of what humans think. Philosophy is necessarily caught up in human thought; it depends on the human capacity to reason, and it analyzes the irreducibly subjective human experience. Indeed, even this neat division between the logical/empirical realm and a broader conception of reason does not entirely hold. Math and science are themselves founded on particular philosophical principles. That is, philosophy alone might not produce Knowledge, but it’s a necessary part of the equation.
Philosophers are less focused on building Knowledge and more focused on clarifying and connecting our ideas and worldviews. This means pointing out logical fallacies and inconsistencies in our beliefs and decisions, and suggesting ways in which we might be able to overcome such ills. Philosophy, in this sense, might be seen as a never-ending process of checks-and-balances on our customs and behaviors. Questions and analysis lead to discussion, which leads to tentative answers, which lead to more questions and analysis, more discussion, and more tentative answers. And somewhere in there, we might begin to accrue knowledge.
In closing, it is not easy to promote philosophy given how many Americans already disdain any form of abstract reasoning and critical thinking. But increasing the amount of philosophical thought among the American public, or in the world at large, will be an even tougher job than it already is if even reasonable people reject it (for not so reasonable motives). This is why we must clear up public misconceptions about philosophy, and properly portray its role to the public. I hope I've at least made you consider why you do or do not think philosophy is important or useful (i.e., made you engage in philosophizing about philosophy!). Remember, I am not arguing you should enter a philosophy program or go read a book by Kant. But you need not do so to value philosophy as a worthwhile endeavor.

34 comments:

  1. A follow up post might be called for. I started reading this post but after reading objection 1, thought to myself "That's stupid, the answer is obvious," and skipped to objection 2. That happened again, and again, and again.

    Surely there are better objections out there, no? Particularly ones that intend to criticize a much narrower scope of philosophy.

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  2. Writing about morality might be more persuasive.

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  3. Michael,

    You lost me on the baseball analogy - perhaps because baseball (unlike, say, ethics or politics) really is a topic that I consider trivial and its commentators overly hair-splitting. (To be fair, you can also say this of analogies to pastimes that I prefer, like musical and dramatic entertainment.)

    Otherwise, well done!

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  4. Michael, you have tried gamely, but if philosophy can't help me build a better refrigerator, I'm not interested. :P

    I might also have pointed out the clarifying power of political & ethical philosophy in political debates. As a random example, I find a philosophical approach cuts skew to a debate like abortion and exposes 99% of what both sides say as irrelevance - both "life begins at conception" and "if you don't like abortions, don't have one."

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  5. Great post, but the following excerpt desperately needs to be expanded on: "For an example of this relationship between reasoning and practice, consider that the philosophical discourse on morality over the past 2,500 years has undoubtedly furthered our understanding of how to live better with one another. In short, our practice can only be improved by our theoretical reasoning about the practice."

    Also, since you're a political philosopher why not use rights in your example? Rights (in the sense we use them) are a fairly modern concept, and when they were originally conceived they were also theoretical and non-obvious, but now they're so well adopted even children understand them. Isn't this the course most great contributions from philosophy take? Sure, the great contributions may be far and few between, but I'd argue their impact can be so great that they're worth far more than their investment.

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  6. Hi Michael,

    Excellent post. I also think that philosophy has been a great engineer of logical tools used by people in many intellectual pursuits; it is, as you made clear, by no means disconnected from the world in which people live and work.

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  7. @Lefaw: The concept of rights is indeed an interesting one. I actually worry that our ethical discourse has been made sort of ridiculous by talk of 'rights.' The trouble is that they often seem to be free-floating and unconnected to other principles, so that the only way to establish that group A has a right to X, is to keep shouting until everybody concedes it. The fact that laypeople seem to think rights have some sort of objective metaphysical existence is also worrisome.

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  8. Interesting how you can write about the reasons for philosophy to matter without once referring to some aspect of its purposes.

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  9. ian: Not objective metaphysical existence, but axiomatic societal foundings. If you denied a US citizen's right for freedom of speech, I think even a layperson would reference the constitution or their founding fathers. Also, moving ethics away from personal opinion and into an arena where they can be rationally argued is, I think, a very significant net benefit.

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  10. Baron,

    interesting how you seem to discount how the positives of philosophy have been discussed quite a bit on this blog. Indeed, this blog *is* one long philosophical argument...

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  11. Massimo.
    But again it seems you've studiously avoided the use of the word purpose - such as in purpose why, purpose of, purpose for, purpose served, etc.

    The positives of philosophy have been discussed - the purposes, as they might differ from those of science for example, have not.

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  12. I truly don't see the difference. If there are positives of philosophy, then that's what philosophy is for. And the differences between it and science have been debated at length here.

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  13. Not from the point of view of different purposes, but I get the joke, truly I do.

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  14. By the way, if there are negatives in philosophy, then is that what philosophy is for as well?

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  15. Two points.

    Without a theory, you just have a pile of data that doesn't make any sense.

    When people talk about the practical, etc., they are inevitably complaining that philosophy isn't reductionist. Well, they are right. It isn't reductionist. It's not supposed to be. Philosophy deals with the most complex issues, and thus is the most complex way of thinking, dealing with issues, etc. It is emergentist, not reductionist. The more complex the thing studied, the more like philosophy is necessarily must become.

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  16. The baseball example is quite appropriate since philosophy is itself not very much more than an obscure intellectual sport where the combatants are judged on the aesthetics of their arguments not on any truth revealed by them. And of course one does not expect progress from sports. At their best engineering and medicine give us knowledge and choices where none existed previously (like the choice to fly to Australia or get a heart transplant). They are where the electron orbitals meet whereas philosophy seems to be more about finding more ways to consider a problem and not to make choices.

    Take heart though perhaps one day it will be as popular as curling.

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  17. @jcm, you wrote:

    "You lost me on the baseball analogy - perhaps because baseball (unlike, say, ethics or politics) really is a topic that I consider trivial and its commentators overly hair-splitting. (To be fair, you can also say this of analogies to pastimes that I prefer, like musical and dramatic entertainment.)"

    Fair enough. I often try to persuade others to care about ethics and politics, but never something like baseball.

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  18. @ianpollock, you wrote:

    "I might also have pointed out the clarifying power of political & ethical philosophy in political debates. As a random example, I find a philosophical approach cuts skew to a debate like abortion and exposes 99% of what both sides say as irrelevance - both 'life begins at conception' and 'if you don't like abortions, don't have one.'"

    I alluded to this particular use of philosophy in my essay, but you present a good practical example of the point. Well done.

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  19. @Lefaw, you wrote:

    "Also, since you're a political philosopher why not use rights in your example? Rights (in the sense we use them) are a fairly modern concept, and when they were originally conceived they were also theoretical and non-obvious, but now they're so well adopted even children understand them. Isn't this the course most great contributions from philosophy take? Sure, the great contributions may be far and few between, but I'd argue their impact can be so great that they're worth far more than their investment."

    You're absolutely right (no pun intended!). I just didn't happen to think of this example for the essay (and furthermore, since it's just an essay, I need to draw the word count line somewhere!)

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  20. @Troy, you wrote:

    "Without a theory, you just have a pile of data that doesn't make any sense."

    Good point!

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  21. Baron P:

    What negatives are we talking about? If philosophy cannot determine the size of some exoplanet, that's a-okay, because philosophy isn't meant to do that. Philosophy is meant to deal with foundational issues like metaphysics, epistemology, language, morality, etc. You're going to have to elaborate on your opinion here, because I don't get it.

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  22. Ritchie,
    Massimo wrote (in response to my comments about purpose) that "If there are positives of philosophy, then that's what philosophy is for." Implying that's its purpose without using the word 'purpose' itself. Trying I suppose to show he doesn't use the word because he doesn't have to.
    My then response was to show that it's not sufficient to signify the purpose by the results. Since IF philosophy had, as it can have, negative results, then by Massimo's logical example, those results would also be its purpose.

    Now here you come with your opinion of what philosophy is "meant" to deal with, but are you willing to say that's its purpose, or just where it's found by luck and accident an empty niche to fill?

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  23. Baron, you must have a strange fixation with purpose. No, it certainly doesn't follow from anything I wrote that the negatives of philosophy are part of its purpose. The purposes of philosophy (there, I used the word!) are varied, and include to elucidate the meaning of concepts, to study the limits of our ability to know, and understand how other disciplines work ("philosophies of").

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  24. @Thameron:
    >At their best engineering and medicine give us knowledge and choices where none existed previously... whereas philosophy seems to be more about finding more ways to consider a problem and not to make choices.

    Try a thought experiment. Imagine people living in the 1st century CE suddenly learned all of our scientific and medical knowledge. How do you think that would play out?

    If your answer is "Horribly*," then perhaps educated 21st century humans outstrip their mediaeval counterparts in scientific knowledge AND in some other area.

    (*I would still probably do it, though.)

    If you still doubt this, pick up the Tanakh, or the Norse Sagas, or the Vedas or Confucius' Analects, and ask yourself whether all they got wrong was the fact questions like cosmology and germ theory.

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  25. Massimo, you've used the word and I suspect it didn't hurt a bit. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt Michael and the other contributors to follow your example.
    I'm not obsessed with the subject if that was your "fixation" implication. I'm naturally curious as to how a philosopher can proceed without considering it as a fundamental cause requirement.

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  26. Baron,

    My computer's New Oxford American Dictionary contains the following:

    "purpose: noun - the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists"

    "definition: noun - 1) a statement of the exact meaning of a word, esp. in a dictionary; also, an exact statement or description of the nature, scope, or meaning of something"

    Mr. De Dora was clever enough to say the following in the second paragraph: "Before moving on, I should define philosophy. ... In short: reason-based conceptual analysis of the human experience." It seems, however, that you weren't clever enough to read it, or to even consider what you mean by "purpose," and how the knowledge of a particular thing's (or idea's) "purpose" can often be gleaned from a clear statement of that thing's (or idea's) "definition."

    After all, it seems to me - and it would be my guess that it seems to most, as well - that "the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists" is contained in "an exact statement or description of the nature, scope, or meaning of something." In light of this, it also seems to me that "reason-based conceptual analysis of the human experience" answers any such questions before they can even be asked. We all get it; why don't you?

    I have a question for you: why are you wasting our time - and the good professor's allotted bandwidth - with such inane, snarky, trollish queries? Why are you making something out of nothing? And, would you mind being annoying somewhere else?

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  27. @ianpollock -

    Did you really want to make the case that people have changed since the first century when in an age of our medical and cosmological knowledge people fly planes into buildings and blow themselves to bits in the name of an ancient superstition? I suspect that giving 1st century people our knowledge and technology would result in a world very much like the one we have now. Our toys and choices expand, but our basic desires and fears do not change nearly as fast.

    There was quite a sizable span between the Greeks and the big names in philosophy that we all know and love, Nietzsche, Kant, etc. At that rate of advancement we can expect something new and exciting in philosophy in only another couple hundred years or so by which time humans will likely be living in the Matrix or well on our way to another star system courtesy of the advancement of science. Either that or our species will have blown ourselves to bits. If I had to bet I'd put money on the latter.

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  28. Michael, A better source for the meaning of purpose as applied to philosophy might be, for one, the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy. Lots of references to purpose there. Excerpt from The Meaning of Life, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/life-meaning/
    "If talk about meaning in life is not by definition talk about welfare or morality, then what is it about? There is as yet no consensus in the field. One answer is that a meaningful life is one that by definition has achieved choice-worthy purposes (Nielsen 1964) or involves satisfaction upon having done so (Wohlgennant 1981). However, this analysis seems too broad for being unable to distinguish the concept of a meaningful life from that of a moral life, which could equally involve attaining worthwhile ends and feeling good upon doing so. We seem to need an account of which purposes are relevant to meaning, with some suggesting they are purposes that not only have a positive value, but also render a life coherent (Markus 2003), make it intelligible (Thomson 2003, 8-13), or transcend one's animal nature (Levy 2005), all of which connote something different from morality and also happiness."
    Your purpose served of course is to be the foil that allows me to present this example to the readers here who actually can understand it.

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  29. In my opinion, the problem with philosophy is that it Platonifies abstract entities and attempts to discover their essences. Hence, you have endless debates over what is "truth" or "meaning" or "knowledge" etc.

    If, like the logical positivists, you adopt an anti-realist point of view and reject metaphysics and any notion of a transcendent realm of Being, then it seems to me that philosophy essentially boils down to a game or words, not necessarily pertaining to objective reality, but pertaining wholly to subjective human concepts and experiences.

    In other words, there might not be such a thing as a Platonic essence of Truth and hence philosophical theories of Truth don't qualify as an objective body of knowledge. However at the same time, philosophy allows us to engage in the relevant linguistic analysis necessary to clarify what we subjectively mean by concepts like Truth and how we use such concepts etc.

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  30. Baron,

    Well, bully for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and for your ability to quote it. You still haven't made a point or shown how your questions about purpose are anything more than inane and snarky pseudo-quips. It only demonstrates that you've framed your queries around a vague, broadly-defined word, of which your intended definition we're all supposed to guess at (not to mention your demand that the word "purpose" be used), which you then present as the issue of "purpose" being avoided - as well as somehow being unintelligible to me.

    As Massimo pointed out, you seem a bit obsessed with "purpose" - despite the fact that the general concept(s) associated with that word were already addressed in the essay! And I would hazard that you're being puckish about the whole thing (as I've tried to make clear); inventing faults in a well-written and coherent essay in order to be a nuisance. Quote an encyclopedia all you want; you're still not contributing to the discussion in any meaningful way.

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  31. Michael,
    Thank you for playing the foil. I didn't expect you would understand the material, and I can see you haven't let me down on that score.

    Maybe you should try on a different hat?

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  32. Baron,

    Thank you for playing the fool; it gives me great confidence in my assertions to see that you can only make pathetic attempts to insult my intelligence (and in a vacuum, nonetheless), instead of actually elaborating on what exactly the point you think you're trying to make is. Instead of, say, expanding on what you think Mr. De Dora missed out on (and no, a paragraph taken from Stanford's EoP is not an expansion of your argument), you make the weak insinuation that I don't "understand the material" - and then you go after my hat! Unfortunately, I think if I put on my fedora, you'd still be a troll. Have a nice life, sweetheart.

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  33. Michael darling,
    If someone wants to ask me nicely I'll expand on my comments, just as I did with those who've already asked. Not only on this thread but previously. Those who require proof that I no longer beat my wife are not likely to get my cooperation.

    But why don't you tell me what the Stanford essay is about and disabuse me of the notion that it may be suggesting that meanings are more to be inferred from purpose than the reverse.

    And you're right that the dunce cap doesn't necessarily identify the dunce. Just makes you wonder what his purpose is for wearing it.

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  34. To anyone still interested:
    One of the better papers on The Purpose of Philosophy (Isaiah Berlin) can be found here:
    http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=5038218142182541644&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&sciodt=0,5

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