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

[<A.M.Goldfinch@lse.ac.uk>]

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First, apologies for sending my post twice: I'm new to this discussion list.

 

Second, in light of the increasing number of Andrews posting on this discussion list, let's hereafter also use the first letter of their surname.

 

Nick, you wrote,

 

>'Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity.'
>
> Quite right. So we do not need to be too precious about it.

 

It does not follow that because X is an activity and not a body of doctrine that therefore we "need not be too precious about it".

 

That minor point aside, I agree entirely that it does not matter where a philosophical issue or problem arises.

 

Of course, philosophers don't have a monopoly on philosophy; it's great when a friend in the pub or a friend studying for a natural science philosophise. However, the bloke in the pub and the physicist philosophise very much as a hobby. I don't know the place of logical thinking in all subjects, but I do know that government and law students, amongst others, are not trained in analytic and logical thinking. Indeed, look at the English legal system: a patch-work of conflicting and inconsistent statutes, case-law, and make-it-up-as-you-go-along law making. Doing logic has made me painfully aware at just how many arguments made in both formal and informal discourse, even by intellectuals, are invalid.

 

Even if everyone in society had a formal training in logical and analytic thinking, there would still be a need for a class of professionals in society dedicated to analytic methods and applying themselves to various subject matters. As it stands, few people reason consistency or even know what a deductively valid argument is. It is no wonder that philosophy is mocked, that over 30% of students in the UK believe in creationism and intelligent design (according to an Opinionpanel Research released in August 2006), that pseudo-science, religious ideology, and incompetent and authoritarian government are on the up. So yes, there is something to be 'precious' about. Clear, logical thinking is precious. Philosophy doesn't have a monopoly on such thinking. But it's increasingly difficult to find such thinking outside philosophy and science.

 

- Andrew G


________________________________

From: owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com on behalf of Nick Jones
Sent: Tue 22/08/2006 12:39
To: BUPS-DIS@bups.org
Subject: Re: Philosophical Problems at home: Explaining "what the hell you're doing" to your skeptical sibling/mother/father/cat...



To reply to this message or start a new topic please email: BUPS-DIS@bups.org


>'Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity.'

Quite right. So we do not need to be too precious about it.

Physicists, biologists, theologians, etc, do not HAVE to call on philosophers when they consider the philosophical implications and problems of their discipline (although reading Richard Holloway recently, I wished he had...), but philosophers are those who are interested in this sort of problem (general or foundational problems), and many physicists etc are not.

So who cares if such philosophical questions arise WITHIN the boundaries of a recognised discipline, rather than in a corral labelled 'philosophy'? The issue is not the subject of the questions, but their nature ...

Although while we're dealing in stereotypes, it seems to me that many people DO think of philosophy as a body of doctrine - hence the desire to study philosophy to learn the secrets of the universe or (less ambitiously) some weird stuff to impress our friends...


Nick



A.M.Goldfinch@lse.ac.uk wrote:
> To reply to this message or start a new topic please email: BUPS-DIS@bups.org
>
>
> The philosophy student is almost unique in having to justify her subject to countless individuals, stranger and friend alike. From the taxi driver and milkman to close friends and family, she is continually asked to justify her academic pursuit.
>
> 
>
> The public's stereotype of the philosopher is one who ponders the 'meaning' of life, anguishes over moral choices, sips copious amounts of coffee, makes the odd reference to Marx, Plato and so on. 'Philosophy' is associated in people's minds with 'nonsense', just as 'Conservative' is associated with 'nasty' and so on.
>
> 
>
> With family and friends we just need to be patient, carefully explaining to them what philosophy is. To strangers - such as the taxi driver or a person at a party - the best approach, given limited time, is to use the descriptive adjective 'analytic' when describing yourself as a philosopher.
>
> 
>
> More seriously is how members of government departments and other academic disciplines view philosophy. Philosophy is usually lumped as a humanity, ranked next to - or combined with - religion (could be worse: bookstores these days lump philosophy with 'new age\mysticism\self-help').
>
> 
>
> Why do those who should know better refuse to accord philosophy with the respect it deserves? The problem is that when philosophy becomes successful it becomes a science and graduates from the domain of philosophy.
>
> 
>
> Human motivation and society -> psychology and sociology -> social science.
>
> 
>
> Experimentation and empirical data -> natural philosophy -> natural science.
>
> 
>
> The subdivisions of philosophy that became successful - or too complex to remain a subdivision - ceased to be classified as philosophy. Philosophy becomes defined as that set of questions for which science has yet - or cannot - provide an answer. Since these questions have yet to be answered - or cannot be answered - and have been around for thousands of years, people associate philosophy with dead questions debated between dead individuals repeated ad infinitum by their successors.
>
> 
>
> Does it matter that philosophy is viewed as useless, irrelevant, airy-fairy? Is it merely a case of wounded pride?
>
> 
>
> That philosophy is viewed with such disdain is dangerous for society. Philosophy is not a set of unanswerable, historical questions. It is an activity; a vital activity. I think the early Wittgenstein captures a lot of what philosophy is about with the following:
>
> 
>
> 'Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity.'
>
> - Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4.112
>
> 
>
> British society suffers from a lack of clear thinking. It's not only in the student newspaper rag that invalid arguments, inferences, and nonsensical claims are made in abundance; muddled, confused thinking is endemic in social, political, and legal discourse.
>
> It doesn't help when we find philosophers themselves making comments that suggest that the domain of philosophy is restricted to footnotes of Plato (the infamous Whitehead quote) or to language (the later Wittgenstein).
>
> 
>
> With the rise of religious ideology, pseudo-science, governments unrestrained by any principles of what the limits of government should be, the need for analytic philosophers actively engaged in society is greater than ever. The philosopher need not become king; but she needs to be respected, listened to. Until that respect appears, public policy will continue to be dominated by rhetoric and muddled thinking.
>
> 
>
> - Andrew Goldfinch
>
> 
>
> 
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com on behalf of Edward Grefenstette
> Sent: Mon 21/08/2006 21:46
> To: bupS-DIS@bups.org
> Subject: Philosophical Problems at home: Explaining "what the hell you're doing" to your skeptical sibling/mother/father/cat...
>
>
>
> To reply to this message or start a new topic please email: BUPS-DIS@bups.org
>
>
> Has anyone here enjoyed the experience of having to explain what a
> philosophy student/professor/research does to an inquisitive family
> member? I'm sure that, to some degree or other, it has. I personally
> don't mind discussing my areas of interest for a few minutes here and
> there, but sometimes you run into someone with a certain idea about
> philosophers (yet not about philosophy) who is going to ask the
> ironically philosophical question "Okay, I know what you do, but why
> do you do it? What's the point?".
>
> I found myself in such a situation just the other day, when my sister
> and her friends, unsatisfied with my already subservient behaviour
> (have you ever tried to taxi 4 teenage girls around shopping centres
> all day? It's not the most fulfilling pastime...) set out to torment
> me with the invalidation of my (or I should say 'our', since you most
> certainly are targeted by proxy, by their cruel endeavour) academic
> field. I tried in vain to present philosophy as a sort of "mother of
> all sciences" (Jon Lowe's BUPC '05 keynote, anyone?) only to be
> countered with the predictable "every academic says that about their
> field". I commented upon how philosophical investigation was perhaps
> the modern day computer, due to Babbage's will to create an analytical
> machine that could compute logic rather than just quantities, I
> discussed the rebirth of democracy and right of state through the
> ethical and political discussions of the Enlightenment, and about how
> rational philosophical thought had always walked hand in hand with
> scientific progress in the dispelling of absurd old world concepts of
> a flat earth, orderly heaven, and miraculous events, only to be told
> that I wasn't talking about philosophy at all. I was merely talking
> about science, about psychology and politics, about human nature...
>
> I was in some way reminded of the example in philosophy of language of
> the foreigner who is being shown around oxford, visiting college after
> college, the library, the exam hall, only to ask "Yes, but where is
> the university?". Kids these days seem to be asking in parallel "Yes,
> but where is the philosophy?". And really, you can't blame them. The
> modern day concept of the philosopher lives in the minds of the masses
> as some toga-draped bearded old man walking along olive-lined dusty
> paths, or perhaps some 19th century existentialist, garbed in black
> with a frilly mustache, but people have a pretty poor idea about what
> a philosopher is today, about what philosophy is today. When I was
> younger (in other words, pre-university) I met a french philosopher by
> the name of Michel Fattal who for all his interesting things to say
> about philosophical thought in the middle east contributing to the
> preservation of Aristotelean thought during the middle ages, could not
> describe philosophy without using vague poetic sentences such as
> "Philosophy... why philosophy is nothing, it is nothing and
> everything". With models like this, no wonder the lay public put forth
> such challenging queries. Not challenging in that they are difficult
> to answer (although they can be as well), but in that they challenge
> our vary subject's right to exist.
>
> At a time where physicists and chemists struggle to woo the younger
> masses into a university formation in these subjects, we too must ask
> ourselves what image philosophy has in the public's mind. We too must
> arm ourselves with tools to seduce, interest and explain. We don't
> have flashy lasers or crystalline arrays of bubbles, so we can only
> rely on words to explain what we do, why we do it, and why others
> should give a damn.
>
> So I turn to the certainly-more-verbose-than-I mass that is BUPS-DIS
> to ask you all: how do you explain these things to your skeptical
> sibling? How do you plan on helping keep the subject alive? (For
> reference in France more and more universities are closing down
> humanities departments do to lack of funding, lack of dynamic
> research, and lack of popular interest. Anthropology is going fast...
> who's next?)
>
> - Edward.
>
>
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>
>
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