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Re: RE: Re: Philosophical Problems at home: Explaining "what the hell you're doing" to your skeptical sibling/mother/father/cat...

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I suspect, like many subjects, philosophy is something which anyone can do. That
is not to say that some won't be better at it than others. But the sense in
which anyone can do philosophy without specialist knowledge is much like the way
anyone can do mathematics without specialist knowledge. All the knowledge we
need is available to us. The axioms of Peano Arithmetic are self evident and
obvious (e.g. every number, n, has a unique successor: n+1). But this doesn't
mean that everyone can see that Fermats Last Theorem was true, it took 200 years
of research to prove that. Similarly in philosophy, although we all have access
to the same notions philosophers have been debating for years, it certainly
helps to have read what's gone before - what you would call 'specialist
knowledge'. And for this reason the pub philosopher will fall short where the
academic philosopher won't. Also bear in mind it is not only knowledge, it takes
a while for people to get into the habit of thinking and writing clearly and
rigorously - this was probably the steepest learning curve for me.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say that the countless English students who
discuss philosophy in the pub aren't doing philosophy. I've often enjoy talking
about physics or computers even though I have no training in these subjects. But
I wouldn't claim that the content of these discussions accurately represent what
these subjects are like.

I agree that you can take up philosophy as a casual hobby - dinner party
conversation and so on - but this will be unlikely to represent 'analytic
philosophy - the academic subject' if there is such a thing. So in response to:

"and to say that philosophy is practised in a specialised manner is probably
true of your university experience of it (aside from the discussions in the
pub), but doesn't have to apply elsewhere."

I would distinguish between the uses of the word 'philosophy'. One usage refers
to a serious area of research studied throughout many anglo-american
universities, the other is term used 'elsewhere'. So suspect, with this
clarification in place we are actually in agreement.

Andrew 



> To reply to this message or start a new topic please email: BUPS-DIS@bups.org
> 
> 
> Andrew - I really don't like your weaker claim.  You don't say
> anything about what not shying away from the 'airy fairy' conception
> means, but you do say that philosophy isn't done like that, and that
> not shying away is in some regard to do with tolerance.  Philosophy is
> not a specialism; anyone can do it without specialist knowledge (of
> the problem of diachronic identity for example), and to say that
> philosophy is practised in a specialised manner is probably true of
> your university experience of it (aside from the discussions in the
> pub), but doesn't have to apply elsewhere.  That we should be tolerant
> of the 'airy fairy' conception certainly isn't what I meant: to
> reiterate, I think that the conception of philosophy as 'airy fairy'
> by the hard-nosed public is probably right.  It is right because
> philosophy is an activity we do rather than a group of scientific
> specialisms that we can join as if we were to join a club (called
> 'philosophy'), and this activity requires non-tautologous use of our
> ideas.  I agree with Keith that philosophy is in fact questioning -
> but this requires an ability to stand outside of our present beliefs,
> and must involve the possibility that we are wrong.  Thus, the
> hard-nosed public who call philosophy 'airy fairy' already are as they
> say, denying, precisely, philosophy.  They are only wrong in the sense
> that they think philosophy is some specialism or academic study, and
> it is unfortunate that you use this to convince them that it is not
> 'airy fairy'.
> 
> - Matt
> 
> On 8/22/06, Keith Thomas-Wurth <aikeith@iinet.net.au> wrote:
> > To reply to this message or start a new topic please email: BUPS-DIS@bups.org
> >
> >
-- 
Andrew Bacon
Lady Margaret Hall
07830048336
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~lady1900



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