[Bups-dis] The Purpose of Philosophy

[lj lj]

Greetings,

Duncan-

I've had my position described as "ironic" and as "paradoxical" but could 
someone spell out exactly why they think that's the case? Why is a means-end 
analysis a problem?
It's quite simple: I have an aim and only those means that help me become a 
better person are on the top of my list. Being unhappy is incompatible with 
being a better person therefore I think that ends that result in one being 
unhappy are incompatible with the aim of becoming a better person. So the 
subset of means to choose from are those that will achieve my aim (so those 
ends which will make me a better person and thus by entailment, won't make 
me miserable).
Philosophy doesn't (often, haha) make me miserable and I think that it can 
help me acheive my aims. Of course, I am indeed ambivalent but that's 
neither ironic nor paradoxical. It's simply reflects the fact that 
philosophy isn't the kind of thing that is guaranteed to acheive my aims. A 
lot of this depends on what one thinks philosophy is or should be and, 
overwhelmingly, what one does with philosophy. Consider the case where I 
choose to study philosophy for my own intellectual development but never 
leave my ivory tower with the case where I make use of my philosophical 
skills to become a sucessful negotiator for the UN or something like that. 
Derpending upon my mood one case can seem closer (or farther) than the 
other.

It's funny that you talk about football and manual labour because the 
average manual worker or footballer probably has a greater effect on the 
real lives of people. I mean when was the last time a philosopher helped 
your next door neighbout fix his roof or start up a business or help his 
favourite team to win the league? Of course, some very, very clever 
philosophers have had great and lasting impacts on our everyday lives and we 
study them in history of philosophy. But we aren't talking about that- we 
are talking about what philosophy CAN be used for, not what is WAS used for. 
I suspect that it's only people who study philosophy seriously who can even 
begin to imagine that what THEY do (and only what they DO) has any kind of 
effect on the real lives of people. Heck that's why when I talk about a 
"famous philosopher" to non-philosophers I often have to add the caveat, 
"well, famous 'IN philosophy'". How many young boys have David Hume as their 
role model? They want to be David Beckham or some pop/ rock star. There you 
go: that's a footballer making absolutely massive difference to the real 
lives of young people. Do philosopher have that kind of effect on the real 
lives of young people? Of any section of the public aside from other 
philosophers? How many non-philosophers do you know whose real lives have 
been affected by the work of a member of your department (for example)? Just 
look at people Like Dawkins who isn't even a professional philosopher- he's 
making more difference to the everyday lives of people and he's not even 
doing philosophy.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE philosophy and I think it has a great potential 
to do good but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that its use acheives 
more than it does; or that, in todays world, there aren't many other things 
which have a much more far-reaching effect on the real lives of people. If 
anything, it's the fact that celebrity and greed seem to have such a greater 
effect than philosophy that spurs me into trying to find ways to reverse 
that situation- i.e. to bring philosophy to the people. No, I don't expect 
15 year olds to start putting up posters of Jeremy Bentham on their walls 
and dreaming of becoming philosophers; but when philosophy was still 
associated with wisdom, philosophers were respected and looked up to, 
whereas now you don't get that kind of respect from the ordinary person just 
because you study philosophy. And why should people respect philosophers- 
people who often spend their lives studying in academia, publishing papers 
in journals that few outside academia have access to (epistemically or 
literally)? A solider goes to war to defend my way of life: I respect that 
because it makes a difference to my life (it keeps me safe). When was the 
last time a philosopher used his/ her philosophy to stop a suicide bomber or 
to help drain my flooded home or to connect my new ADSL line?
It's funny because I was reading a discussion on a similar issue recently 
and someone said something to the effect that, like any theoretical or 
technical discipline, it takes a while for philosophical knowledge to filter 
down to the general public. And this seems right for things like mathematics 
and physics (consider calculus and relativity, respectively) but what of 
philosophy? If philosophy is all about reasoning then why hasn't that 
filtered down? People (and, of course, I mean ordinary people) make as many 
mistakes in reasoning as they ever did. So exactly what is filtering down to 
the man on the street and his real life? Heck even mathematics doesn't 
filter down to the bloke putting some money on the horses- the overwhelming 
majority of people aren't going to use some knowledge from the mathematics 
of probability to decide which horse the should back. Maybe they SHOULD but 
they don't.

And it's funny that you talk about philosophy and ethics. Is there anyone 
who has radically changed their behaviour because of philosophy? This is 
tricky because let's not forget that the time at which young people tend to 
start being exposed to philosophy academically is the very age at which they 
tend to make major changes anyway. What I mean, of course, is the following: 
has anyone who has studied philosophy for a number of years and of a mature 
age (in terms of undergrad status) read some non-canonical paper in ethics 
and suddenly changed their lif in a radical way? I doubt it but I recognise 
it's possible. My point is that, to my knowledge, even if it does happen it 
is exceedingly rare. After all, in our younger years we all tend to become 
more socially and morally aware and this happens just as much to people who 
have no contact with philosophy. The issue is whether philosophical works 
themselves have a power to sway us when we are not already succeptible to 
being persuaded; and more importantly, whether such works are likely to 
persuade non-philosophers who are not already succeptible to being 
persuaded, in a way that impacts their everyday lives. And on that matter 
I'm highly sceptical.

My real gripe is what I mentioned in an earlier reply when I talk about ones 
treating philosophy in an overly abstract way (conflating history of 
philosophy with philosophy is one such culprit) being a way for people to be 
morally irresponsible as far as making choices and taking ownership of the 
consequences of their decision to practice philosophy is concerned.

Regards,

Luis.

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