RE: Is philosophy a science? - With an example involving a bear (what more could you want?!)
Interesting! I studied philosophy in both the US and the UK and I must admit I don't recognise your characterisation of philosophy in the US as based on making models and predictions. I guess the method we use could be described as scientific or at least aspiring to be scientific, in the sense that it's logical and analytical, and we 'test' theories by exposing them to rigorous logical interrogation. Obviously as we're working with language not numbers this ends up being less purely logical than for example mathematics, but the goal, even if never achieved(!), is to come up with infallible arguments.
However even if the method could be described as scientific I would distinguish it from science precisely as you do, on the basis of the questions that we ask, questions that scientists take for granted.
One thing I would say is that we are comfortable, at least in the fields in which I worked (moral and political philosophy), in adjusting theory in response to intuition. So a moral theory that leads to the conclusion that we must kill the weakest in society, let's say, would be rejected, by many anyway, on the basis that this can't be right, we can't have a moral theory that requires us to kill people. This then would be an example of adjusting philosophical theory to fit 'reality'- i.e how people actually think about moral behaviour.
I wonder was the guy you met working in experimental philosophy? That was quite the hot topic when I was in the US, but far from mainstream and certainly controversial as to whether they were still doing philosophy.
Thanks for prompting such a rich discussion!
Ah, good to hear about this. Unfortunately I don't know the full background of this guy, as I downed my drink and got out when he asked me to describe my field, and he then concluded 'ah, so you do poetry'. Ehm, no.
But he was not the only basis for my understanding about US - philosophy. The whole of it was too much for a post like this, I felt. But sitting through a lecture by Daniel Dennett was another one. And perhaps he is also on the fringe of philosophy, who know.
and in the end the distinction goes further than what I've mentioned in this article. Has to do with type of attitude. But not yet understand that enough myself to really articulate that good enough.
Thanks for your response! Looking forward to reading more of you!
True, there's definitely a distinction between the anglo-american tradition and so-called continental philosophy, which I can't claim to articulate as I unfortunately never studied continental philosophy, but from what I gather it does come down to method.
Dennett is pretty mainstream I guess, or at least is not considered on the fringe of philosophy in terms of his method even if his ideas are not fully accepted. And he's a good example to back up your case :) he definitely did/does a lot of work at the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy. Again, though, I see it as philosophy, and not science. He doesn’t do neuroscience experiments, but questions the assumptions that neuroscientists make. So, for example, on free will. He holds that we have free will, in the sense that we can be held morally responsible for our actions. Experiments in neuroscience have shown we do not have free will. Dennett denies their conclusions by questioning the assumptions made, in this case the way that the scientists have defined free will. He is willing to accept the findings of the experiments in terms of their definition of free will but says that they do not affect the existence of free will as he defines it. In his analysis of the concept of free will I see him as clearly doing philosophy and not science, and for me it fits with what you say about philosophy framing the frame?
I don’t know his work well at all, and I don’t deny that maybe he does more ‘scientific’ stuff, and as I say the experimental philosophy scene does do actual science experiments to try and inform their philosophical theories.
For me, allowing philosophical theory to be impacted by ‘reality’ is not strange, but I guess that reflects my particular background in philosophy!
Anyway, I left academic philosophy behind quite a few years ago now, but I do miss it! Nice to have someone on here to discuss ideas with and I look forward to reading your next post!
I love quite a lot about Dennett, but there are two things I think are ridiculous: his idea that consciousness is an illusion, and his idea that free will exists (he's a compatibilist).
The idea of free will, in most people's minds, is very simple: it's the ability to have done otherwise if everything were exactly the same. This Dennett admits is impossible, but still proceeds to redefine what it means. He basically redefines until he gets his conclusion through. I don't know why some people are so enamored with certain ideas they were taught as kids.
This also harms philosophy, since it creates this idea that philosophers have been debating the same issues for thousands of years without making any progress or solving anything. This is patently false: we've solved more issues than I can count. But no, philosophers must re-invent the free will vs determinism debate as a compatibilist vs incompatibilist debate, lest they file the issue under 'solved', cos then who knows maybe the universe will collapse or something.
Thanks a lot for giving more insight on Dennett than I could! I studied him once in a phil mind course as an undergrad but moved towards moral and political philosophy for the PhD. What you say about some philosophers re-inventing debates - yes that's something that did frustrate me and one of the reasons why I eventually chose to leave the field. Great comment!