Re: what does a philosopher do?

[bgra6052@mail.usyd.edu.au]

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(Quiet, contemplative moment while I pull on my philosophical gumboots
before wading into the increasingly deep and muddy puddle that this
discussion is becoming...)

Hello all!

Like Daniel, this is my first intrusion into a BUPS debate. (As some of you
may have noticed from my email address, I'm a student at the University of
Sydney, but in case anyone is concerned that this excludes me from a BUPS
mailing list, I point out that I am a British citizen and do study
philosophy! Besides, you all seem like a kind and welcoming bunch so I
thought you wouldn't mind the intrusion.)

I just had to respond to Rab's question because the answer seems to me to
be so clear in the question itself, and in subsequest responses to it.
This is what a philosopher does! I mean, as someone else pointed out: do
you see physicists, mathematicians, historians and so on getting lost in
thought about their discipline's very reason for existence? Ok, so some of
them might occassionally, but I would argue that when they do so they are
acting as philosophers and have crossed the invisible line between
physics, maths, history or whatever and the philosophy of physics, maths,
history or whatever. Because it is possible to question the nature and
rational of any field of study, there can be, as someone observed, a
philosophy of anything; but philosophy does also have disciplines that
seem uniquely its own.

The defining quality of philosophical inquiry seems to me to be that it
takes nothing for granted, observes no limits to its field of study,
leaves no stone unturned. Every other discipline is built upon certain
basic assumptions that cannot be denied, but not philosophy. Of course, we
have various working hypotheses - the laws of logic, the principles of
rational thinking - but some philosophers have challenged these without
forfeiting the right to be considered philosophers, and all philosophers
are at liberty to do so. If any one else challenged the basic assumptions
of their discipline they would cease to be working within it. If, as
someone pointed out, some physicists have moved into philosophy, it is
because they have been unable to make further progress working within the
basic assumptions of physics, and so have been forced to challenge these
and look beyond them.

Someone said that philosophy used to cover a much broader spectrum, but
this is not entirely accurate (probably that's not quite what they said at
all and I've evilly twisted their words to my sophistic purposes):
philosophers can still study physics, literary criticism, biology and all
those other now seperate disciplines that Aristotle and others used to
study, but over time so much of interest has been found within each of
these disciplines that people have made very worthwhile careers working
entirely within them, without ever challenging their basic underlying
disciplines, and so physics, literary criticism, biology and so forth have
become seperated from philosophy. It is not that it is no longer a
philosopher's job to enquire into these; it is rather that if in doing so
he accepts without question their underlying assumptions he ceases to do
philosophy.

Now, as for the prickly problem of the usefulness of philosophy (sorry,
this is getting a little long-winded): other disciplines have branched off
and done their own thing because specialists within them realised they
could get a lot more done if they stopped questioning the underlying
assumptions of everything they did. I would suggest that earlier
philosophers had no qualms about working within areas that would these
days be considered the domain of science or history or whatever because
what they were doing questioned the assumptions of their societies at the
time. Now, all these disciplines, it would seem to me, have accomplished a
lot of good for humanity. The question is, has philosophy? Certainly,
philosophers' ideas have influenced the direction of inquiry in other
disciplines and the actions and beliefs of individuals and societies; but
the 'problem' with philosophy is that, because it keeps questioning
itself, none of these directions it has pushed us in could unequivocally
be called the right one. On the other hand, I believe the great benefit of
philosophy to humanity is to keep us always on our toes, not allowing us to
lazily accept any easy answers, to always be challenging, questioning,
pushing further and deeper. This can get a little tedious, but on the
whole I think it is a thoroughly worthwhile ambition for philosophy.

I like this idea of undercover philosophers going about their daily lives
as plumbers or mathematicians or engineers while secretly plotting to
challenge society's underlying assumptions and question everything, like
philosophical sleeper cells...

Anyway, they're my thoughts, but you are all of course welcome to challenge
them. You wouldn't be philosophers if you didn't! (Although I too, Rab,
feel a little squeamish about calling ourselves that. Perhaps it's because
it's more of a position than a profession: you don't introduce yourself at
parties with 'Hi, I'm Bob, I'm a social conservative' or anything like
that. I had a great lecturer at university who, despite being one of the
world's eminent logicians, would never call himself a philosopher, not
wanting to be thought of as comparing himself to the greats of the
profession. Also, in response to another comment about philosophy
lecturers being the only ones who would ever contemplate a question in
silence for 30 seconds before answering, this one had no qualms about
sitting and pondering for five minutes before answering while the class
just coughed and murmured quietly...)

Brian Gray

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