June 09, 2012
Physicists, Stop the Churlishness
Jim Holt in the New York Times:
A kerfuffle has broken out between philosophy and physics. It began earlier this spring when a philosopher (David Albert) gave a sharply negative review in this paper to a book by a physicist (Lawrence Krauss) that purported to solve, by purely scientific means, the mystery of the universe’s existence. The physicist responded to the review by calling the philosopher who wrote it “moronic” and arguing that philosophy, unlike physics, makes no progress and is rather boring, if not totally useless. And then the kerfuffle was joined on both sides.
This is hardly the first occasion on which physicists have made disobliging comments about philosophy. Last year at a Google “Zeitgeist conference” in England, Stephen Hawking declared that philosophy was “dead.” Another great physicist, the Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, has written that he finds philosophy “murky and inconsequential” and of no value to him as a working scientist. And Richard Feynman, in his famous lectures on physics, complained that “philosophers are always with us, struggling in the periphery to try to tell us something, but they never really understand the subtleties and depths of the problem.”
Why do physicists have to be so churlish toward philosophy? Philosophers, on the whole, have been much nicer about science. “Philosophy consists in stopping when the torch of science fails us,” Voltaire wrote back in the 18th century. And in the last few decades, philosophers have come to see their enterprise as continuous with that of science. It is noteworthy that the “moronic” philosopher who kicked up the recent shindy by dismissing the physicist’s book himself holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics.
More here. [Photo shows David Albert.]
Posted by S. Abbas Raza at 01:16 PM | Permalink
Comments
Mr. Holt: "Physicists expand the circle, and philosophers help clear up the paradoxes. "
Mr Holt is wrong. Take two examples of "paradoxes" that make regular appearances in philosophy texts - the "twin paradox" of special relativity, and time travel.
Philosophers frequently give the first a construction where it is asserted that there is a contradiction or "paradox" in special relativity. In fact, there is no paradox if you do the mathematics or if you pose the question according to Einstein's principles - the paradox is resolved in the acceleration that occurs when the space ship turns around. (The frame of reference changes.)
School boys know this. Philosophers do not. The school boys don't know the maths but they do know the concepts. Philosophers don't even engage. They simply indulge in word games, and perpetuate the confusions.
Time travel is similar. Physicists debate the existence or not of closed time-like curves in spacetime and use mathematics to make the case. Meanwhile philosophy is still stuck in the 1950's with the childish nostrums of Heinlein and Asimov.
Far from cleaning up "paradoxes" philosophy just perpetuates them through its reliance on the fuzziness of natural language. It hasn't had anything to offer to physics for several centuries now. Since Newton in fact.
As for Weinberg, Hawking and Penrose and the sublttites of quantum mechanics, I recall Karl Popper's efforts which were completely embarrassing. But not as bad as his ridiculous thoughts on entropy and the second law which he presented to Einstein. Given Einstein's patent background where he regularly demolished patents on perpetual motion, I'm surprised Albert had the good grace not to fall of his chair and roll on the floor laughing.
Philosophers are completely ill-equipped to deal with the "philosophical" questions of physics. Completely.
Posted by: JM | Jun 9, 2012 2:36:04 PM
I hold an M.S. in engineering from a top ten university in the U.S. Engineering is directly derived from science, of course, and I appreciate that as much as anyone.
But, in the last days of humanity (last days as in when the human race dies out as will everything in the Universe, according to science), science will have no solution and philosophy will win out. Just like passengers in a plunging airliner pray out to God. I say the decision goes to the winner. In the meantime, we ultimately build our buildings according to science.
Posted by: George Hilbert | Jun 9, 2012 3:40:40 PM
In the "more" part of Holt's article he says:
Finally, consider the anti-philosophical strictures of Richard Feynman. “Cocktail party philosophers,” he said in a lecture, think they can discover things about the world “by brainwork” rather than by experiment (“the test of all knowledge”). But in another lecture, he announced that the most pregnant hypothesis in all of science is that “all things are made of atoms.” Who first came up with this hypothesis? The ancient philosophers Leucippus and Democritus. And they didn’t come up with it by doing experiments.
This argument is one reason that physicists say philosophers are "moronic". If Holt thinks that the Greek atoms ("indivisible") have anything to to with physicists' atoms (definitely not indivisible), then he is more ignorant than I expected. Either that or he is indulging in deliberate sophistry.
Posted by: Darth Vader | Jun 9, 2012 6:50:06 PM
Physics and philosophy once shared a fruitful relationship. Perhaps the last great philosopher of physics was Ernst Mach.... Mach's Principle had a profound influence on Einstein's thinking when developing the General Theory of Relativity.
Mach was a scientist in his own right; something missing from today's crop of philosophers..
Posted by: Bill | Jun 11, 2012 2:53:25 AM
In true "Philosopher" style, Mr. Holt presents a few major points/questions, all of which are essentially a play on words and/or an abuse of word meanings rather than a legitimate point.
1. "Physicists expand the circle, and philosophers help clear up the paradoxes."
2. "Is Mr. Hawking’s positivism the same positivism that Mr. Weinberg decries? That, one supposes, would be an issue for philosophical discussion."
3. "The disagreement between Mr. Hawking the positivist and Mr. Penrose the Platonist — a philosophical one! — has hard scientific consequences: because of it, they take radically opposed views of what is going on when a quantum measurement is made. Is one of them guilty of philosophical naïveté? Are they both?"
4. "Finally, consider the anti-philosophical strictures of Richard Feynman. “Cocktail party philosophers,” he said in a lecture, think they can discover things about the world “by brainwork” rather than by experiment (“the test of all knowledge”). But in another lecture, he announced that the most pregnant hypothesis in all of science is that “all things are made of atoms.” Who first came up with this hypothesis? The ancient philosophers Leucippus and Democritus. And they didn’t come up with it by doing experiments."
Point 1 is a preposterous claim and JM's comment above already hit this nail on the head. "Far from cleaning up "paradoxes" philosophy just perpetuates them through its reliance on the fuzziness of natural language. It hasn't had anything to offer to physics for several centuries now. Since Newton in fact."
I would add to JM's examples where philosophy offers NOTHING another "classic": if a tree falls in the forest, but no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
This "famous paradox" is TRIVIALLY boiled down to a word-game using modern science. All you need to do is define sound as EITHER a pressure wave in a medium OR a physiochemical perceptive reaction in an ear canal and the answer is instantly determined. There is only a "paradox" when terms are undefined, physical states are unknown, mechanisms are shrouded, and fundamental physics equations are undiscovered. Philosophers simply didn't count on scientists actually figuring out the EXACT "hairs" inside the cochlea, the fact they are frequency-tuned and physically connected using molecular bridges, or use nanomechanics-scale displacement to open/close special channels to transfer ions to generate potential differences in receptor cells which transmit electrical pulses to the CNS etc. etc. The fact of the matter is, philosophy reigned for a long time because they could always say "well, you can explain A and B, but not C" but nowadays we can explain A-Y (in many cases). So it starts to become obvious that putting all your eggs in the "well, you still can't explain Z" basket is a pretty bad move. In some areas of knowledge, we may still be at "A" and not even "B", but the point is using our historical progress as a guide, "philosophy-in-the-gaps" is as likely to succeed as "God-in-the-gaps".
Point 2 is an absolute non-issue, because Mr. Holt is in no way discussing a use or need for philosophy in science. "Positivism" here could be replaced by "Voodoo"-ism or "You-should-always-wash-your-hands-in-the-loo"-ism and it would be equally relevant to science. Scientists disagree ALL THE TIME about interpretations of data, implications of hypotheses and theories, as well as what consitutes sufficient evidence. However, this "disagreement" which Mr. Holt is putting forward has NOTHING TO DO with science. The fact of the matter is that if further empirical study and SCIENTIFIC process cannot resolve this supposed disagreement, then this disagreement is not, nor will it ever be, in the realm of science even though it may very well involve two scientists. Given this, it adds nothing to the debate/argument.
Point 3 is just baffling because it again implies that philosophy is crucial to scientific interpretations. I don't know how much more blunt scientists can be...if a question/disagreement can be physically tested (now or in the future) then it is a scientific matter whereas if it cannot EVER be tested then the matter is completely philosophical. There is ZERO overlap, despite philosophers' attempts to claim the areas that science can't YET test.
Point 4 is absolutely ridiculous and somehow conflates modern atomic theory with ancient conjectures that are not even rigorous enough to call a hypothesis. In fact, this has already been perfectly addressed in "Darth Vader"'s comment above and I will quote it here: "This argument is one reason that physicists say philosophers are "moronic". If Holt thinks that the Greek atoms ("indivisible") have anything to to with physicists' atoms (definitely not indivisible), then he is more ignorant than I expected. Either that or he is indulging in deliberate sophistry."
Posted by: Thana Z | Jun 11, 2012 3:55:18 AM
When confronted, philosophers resort to one of two petty tactics:
1. Point to accomplishments from a past age when everything was called "philosophy" and everyone a "philosopher".
2. Argue that others are, in fact, engaging in philosophy even if they don't know it.
Why do they do this? Because they have nothing of substance to say. They can't point to any accomplishments by actual trained philosophers. And thus they become parasites, trying to pass off other fields' triumphs as their own.
Posted by: Erst | Jun 14, 2012 1:11:23 AM
Oh, good, astoundingly ignorant commenters swarm 3QD again. JM thinks "philosophers" spend their time studying an alleged paradox that schoolboys know are nonsense. Thana thinks they study the question of trees falling in forests. Erst thinks that philosophers have no intellectual accomplishments whatsoever. Notice that note one of the above comments--not one--cares to mention a single philosopher or make reference to a single philosophical text in order to support their claims about the discipline. They are content to simply write sentences of the form "philosophers X", where X is some ridiculously broad generalization that cannot possibly be true, given the diversity within the discipline itself.
Just imagine what would happen if one of us tried to discourse in this fashion about science. Imagine if I went around writing articles claiming that "scientists" are morally corrupt or something like that, without citing any scientific work or demonstrating any knowledge of scientific theory whatsoever. I would, rightly, be dismissed and ridiculed. Yet, when the subject is philosophy, an entirely new set of standards suddenly leaps into play. This absurdity is magnified by irony: is it not profoundly anti-scientific to hold to a hypothesis without sufficient evidence?
Ladies, gentlemen: what secret hatred for abstract thought lives in your hearts, such that you are motivated to make ill-informed attacks on a subject you plainly do not understand? By what right do you exempt yourselves from ordinary standards of discussion?
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Jun 14, 2012 10:19:57 AM
Nick, while I am with you in claiming value for doing philosophy, you protest too much here.
"Notice that note one of the above comments--not one--cares to mention a single philosopher or make reference to a single philosophical text in order to support their claims about the discipline."
So what? To claim that astrology is nonsense I need to mention famous astrologers or make references to astrological texts? Why?
Nobody has written a scholarly article here so your demands for citations comes across as a little shrill. These are comments on the internet!
The usefulness of science is obvious in a way that spending time thinking and writing about the analytic/synthetic distinction is not, so I wouldn't draw the kinds of parallels that you do. You really think that someone who says "All philosophy is garbage," is wrong in the same way as someone who says "All science is garbage?" It's clear to me that one doesn't have to be insane to ask the former question!
It would perhaps have been better if you had bothered to explain to people why philosophical thought is important and unavoidable.
Posted by: Abbas Raza | Jun 14, 2012 11:52:14 AM
Oh, and Bill,
"Mach was a scientist in his own right; something missing from today's crop of philosophers..."
Many philosophers are scientists and mathematicians and some hold joint appointments even today. David Albert (pictured in this post, and my Ph.D. advisor, by the way) holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Rockefeller University and has published many scientific papers in quantum theory, for example.
Posted by: Abbas Raza | Jun 14, 2012 12:00:38 PM
"is it not profoundly anti-scientific to hold to a hypothesis without sufficient evidence?"
In some sense, but Leonard Susskind has a pretty good defense of this conundrum, whereby some science leads off into untestable territory in his better-than-Krauss'-rehash: The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design. His point is long, but thoughtful and compelling, and includes examples like the theory of evolution, which remained untestable, by experiment, in the laboratory for a hundred years after its acceptance as sound science.
Posted by: Carlos | Jun 14, 2012 12:01:06 PM
Abbas, I did not claim any value for philosophy, nor am I interested in defending its value here, especially to people who don't know anything about it and who almsot certainly won't bother to learn. Perhaps philosophy has no value at all. I am simply asking that in pursuing this conclusion, we adhere to ordinary (and, I say again, scientific) standards of argument and judgment.
My comparison was only meant at this level: if we talked in this ignorant fashion about science (or about almost any topic whatsoever) we wouldn't even be taken seriously. Yet, one so often hears people holding forth on philosophy in just this way. I'm not asking for footnotes, I am asking that people support their claims, perhaps by naming some actual philosophical ideas and saying why they are nonsensical or of no value. Apparently that is too much to ask.
Finally, I am amazed to hear you say that it would be fine to bash astrology while remaining basically ignorant of what astrologers say. I know you are a very intelligent person, so you can't possibly mean that. We can bash astrology because we know (1) that astrologers claim that the positions of stars in the sky are correlated with certain kinds of events in human life, and (2) that this claim is false. Without (1), we are plainly not entitled to criticize astrology.
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Jun 14, 2012 12:35:10 PM
First, I agree with Nick to a large extent that normal standards of argumentation seem to be left behind when this discussion occurs.
Abbas, I think that if Nick is guilty of protesting too much, than you might be guilty of demurring his protests too much. Like Nick, I don't think it's too much to ask that someone making broad generalizations about an entire field be held to account for at least one specific example upon which their generalization is based. This doesn't have to be scholarly citation, just a casual mention would suffice as evidence. The same people making such strikingly unspecified accusations about philosophy on the whole seem to have no problem citing specific scientific facts and theories in otherwise pedestrian comments.
I'll direct my attention to Thana Z's comments as they seem to be the most comprehensive in their analysis:
The (1) example about Holt's take on "paradoxes" is not a claim that is rigorous enough for real analysis, but I will say that the very idea of a "paradox" is inherently problematic. That is, paradoxes (in the non-mathematical sense) are simply a result of our construction of language, not a feature of external reality (though even mathematical paradoxes are just stricter versions of contradiction within an agreed set of symbols). Usually they're just a clever play on recursion (though in math this can be quite important). In this I think we would agree. However, your "classic" example of a tree falling in the woods is not really part of any philosophical tradition. Sometimes a version of it is attributed to George Berkeley, but it's really only "classic" in the sense that people often use it as a caricature of what they believe Philosophy to be. Mind you, there are extreme versions of Idealism that would make claims about the world not existing outside of human perception, but even the philosophers to whom these kinds of claims are attributed (Berkeley notwithstanding) often don't turn out to actually endorse such an absolutist position. Most times they are just trying to use thought experiments to tease out our intuitions about epistemology and phenomenology.
Your take on point (2) is crucial, because it illustrates a common misconception about what is or is not "philosophical". In your analysis of what is relevant to science, in which you claim that arguments about "positivism" are not relevant, you are in fact making a philosophical argument. It's philosophical because it is a series of claims whose coherence relies on the consistency of its terms, not solely on its reference to empirical data. Now, you might say "Who cares?! I'm only interested in gathering data and drawing conclusions based on that data, not in justifying or explaining my empirical project to anyone." And this is fine, no one can demand a justification from you. However, to the extent that you do offer a justification or explanation of science's empirical project (and its claims to gathering knowledge via empirical study), you are offering a philosophical argument for consideration. As such, this "The fact of the matter is that if further empirical study and SCIENTIFIC process cannot resolve this supposed disagreement, then this disagreement is not, nor will it ever be, in the realm of science even though it may very well involve two scientists." is a philosophical argument about the nature of science as a human endeavor. (I should also add that it is, not too ironically, a positivist argument)
Likewise your take on point (3) is, again, a philosophical analysis about whether the philosophical views of scientists are relevant to the scientific enterprise. You claim that they are not. Yet, notice that your claim does not make appeal to empirical data to support your case. That is, it is not itself scientific. Instead, your claims are just an explanation of what you take to be the definition of science. This explanation might sound perfectly correct to listeners because they share your definition, but it is still philosophical. Again, "if a question/disagreement can be physically tested (now or in the future) then it is a scientific matter whereas if it cannot EVER be tested then the matter is completely philosophical." is itself a philosophical argument for exactly the reasons you give.
Point (4) is interesting for a few reasons. First, the scientists who originally formulated modern atomic theory were keenly aware of the ancient Greek idea of atoms. Hence the use of the term. To deny that continuity is to deny the heavy influence of Greek thought on Renaissance and Enlightenment era thinkers. Second, the conjecture of the ancient Greeks that you find so absurd was in fact the very real starting point for the scientific hypotheses of early practitioners such as Boyle and Newton. Atomism and, the related corpuscularianism, were ideas offered by the first scientists (then called "natural philosophers") studying the physical and chemical structure of nature. The fact that our contemporary definition of "atoms" involves sub-atomic particles hardly discounts the general idea of fundamental particles, which is what the original idea of "indivisible" atoms is really all about. And as you know, fundamental particles, particles that cannot be further broken down into parts, are very much a core aspect of contemporary physics. If you try to define away the connection between contemporary ideas about fundamental particles and the ancient Greek idea of atoms by stressing that modern "atoms" are actually divisible, then it is you who are playing word games.
(As a footnote, I might mention that the use of CAPITALS to stress a point is a rhetorical device, not a logical or empirical one.)
Posted by: Ben Schwartz | Jun 14, 2012 6:34:50 PM
Hi Nick and Ben,
Your points are well taken. I was only trying to suggest that perhaps a little more patience is called for with people who unguardedly make statements like "Philosophy is garbage," in the same way that I might leave a quick comment somewhere saying "Astrology is garbage" or "Homeopathy is garbage," without going into the details of why I think this is so (much less cite actual astrologers or homeopaths or their texts, which is what you were asking the anti-philosophy people to do).
But I understand what you are saying. Don't think we have too much of a disagreement here. :-)
Posted by: Abbas Raza | Jun 15, 2012 4:19:29 AM
Abbas,
I agree that patience is always the wiser choice. It's taken basically my entire adult life to learn this.
Though, I sympathize with Nick's exasperation since Philosophy as a practice and a history of thought is so diverse that almost any wholesale characterization will ring false.
Still, as always you are a scholar and a gentleman, and I thank you.
Posted by: Ben Schwartz | Jun 15, 2012 5:11:26 PM
Nick Smyth: "Oh, good, astoundingly ignorant commenters swarm 3QD again. JM thinks "philosophers" spend their time studying an alleged paradox that schoolboys know are nonsense. Thana thinks they study the question of trees falling in forests. Erst thinks that philosophers have no intellectual accomplishments whatsoever. Notice that note one of the above comments--not one--cares to mention a single philosopher or make reference to a single philosophical text in order to support their claims about the discipline. They are content to simply write sentences of the form "philosophers X", where X is some ridiculously broad generalization that cannot possibly be true, given the diversity within the discipline itself."
I assume you're intentionally trolling, but I explicitly quoted and addressed the EXACT WORDS used by the author of the source NYT article for each and every point I made. In fact, I referenced LARGE CHUNKS of the source article and probably spent quite a deal more effort in sticking to the facts of the situation than you have in claiming that I "[think philosophers] study the question of trees falling in forests". If you can't acknowledge your own gross distortions here, you clearly have no desire to honestly debate.
Nick Smyth: "Ladies, gentlemen: what secret hatred for abstract thought lives in your hearts, such that you are motivated to make ill-informed attacks on a subject you plainly do not understand? By what right do you exempt yourselves from ordinary standards of discussion?"
All I can say is that "understanding" is NOT subjective in science. That is the purpose of science, to come to a singular reference point of "truth" or "understanding". I can factually demonstrate scientific understanding through predicting physical tests or processes or interactions with nature that can be observed by external parties with an absolute correct answer/correct prediction. There is no such equivalent with philosophy, therefore it can't be "understood". It is impossible to test, verify, or prove "understanding" of philosophy. This is a primary point of reasoning for those who do not value philosophy.
Until you can provide an empirical test to determine philosophical "understanding", the burden is on you to justify how you know that those you are debating are not more expert in philosophical "understanding" than you are.
Abbas Raza: "Many philosophers are scientists and mathematicians and some hold joint appointments even today. David Albert (pictured in this post, and my Ph.D. advisor, by the way) holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Rockefeller University and has published many scientific papers in quantum theory, for example."
Many scientists are also Creationists. Many scientists also believed that Einstein was insane or that Tesla was a moron. Scientists are still humans and are free to be fallible and illogical at will. Holding up a handful of example individuals who happen to be both scientists and philosophers is PRECISELY the kind of reasoning/argumentation/bandwagoning that is only valid in humanities/philosophy debates. The fact of the matter is that even if every brilliant scientist in the world agreed on something, they could still be proven wrong and SCIENCE would still be right. The usefulness of science and the usefulness of philosophy are only subjective if you refuse to acknowledge the many metrics that the vast majority of the world implicitly consider as "usefulness": medicine, convenience, food supply, water supply, shelter, transportations, etc. etc. etc. etc.
Nick Smyth: "My comparison was only meant at this level: if we talked in this ignorant fashion about science (or about almost any topic whatsoever) we wouldn't even be taken seriously. Yet, one so often hears people holding forth on philosophy in just this way. I'm not asking for footnotes, I am asking that people support their claims, perhaps by naming some actual philosophical ideas and saying why they are nonsensical or of no value. Apparently that is too much to ask."
As I have already stated, "ignorance" of philosophy is ill-defined. Science promulgates and prides itself on the very definitions of facts, knowledge, and understanding. Philosophy does not deal with empirical facts, so "ignorance" in the normal sense of the word does not apply. I invite you to define what "knowledge" or "non-ignorance" of philosophy would be. Claims such as "read works by philosophers" fail immediately because there is no definition for what is a "valid" philosopher or an "invalid" philosopher unlike science in which there are clear definitions of "science" vs. "psuedo-science".
Ben Schwartz: "Like Nick, I don't think it's too much to ask that someone making broad generalizations about an entire field be held to account for at least one specific example upon which their generalization is based."
To be perfectly honest with you, as someone working in a scientific field my stomach churns when you even presume to call "philosophy" an "entire field" as though it were equitable to the "entire field" of science. I don't say this to offend, but I hope you understand on a human level why those who work in a field that has indisputably cured countless thousands of ills and diseases, saved billions of lives, and improved the living conditions for the vast, vast majority of all human beings do not like the idea of being compared to "economics" or "philosophy" as just another "field". Philosophy, as a field, has done nothing that you can empirically claim. You can make vague "what if" assertions but there is literally NOTHING that can be claimed by philosophy as an actual achievement that has improved the human condition. I challenge you to provide sourced evidence for a SINGLE instance. I don't see why I need to cite specific individuals, because it is quite obvious that any and all texts that do not land in the scientific arena can't possibly meet this challenge. Take your pick of Epicurus, Artistotle, Pluto, whatever. Just make sure that for whomever you choose to discuss, you NEVER involve or cite ANYTHING that used the scientific method since that would of course not be philosophy.
Also, the reason why one can legitimately make "broad generalizations" about philosophy is that there ARE NO SPECIFICS in philosophy. There IS NO SUCH THING as reference knowledge in philosophy. Anything or nothing can be considered "valid" or "general" or "specific" or "right" or "wrong".
Ben Schwartz: "As a footnote, I might mention that the use of CAPITALS to stress a point is a rhetorical device, not a logical or empirical one."
It's a device for me to express exactly how I would verbally communicate emphasis for the words I am writing, nothing more or less. It is not intended to be "rhetorical" in the sense that I am intentionally trying to divert or distort words for tricking/impressing an audience. I'm not really sure why this is relevant anyway though. This is obviously not a publication format...
Ben Schwartz: "Though, I sympathize with Nick's exasperation since Philosophy as a practice and a history of thought is so diverse that almost any wholesale characterization will ring false."
Again, there is no true or false in philosophy. If I claimed that Epicurus never made a statement about physical feelings or sensations, you could in no way challenge me within the realm of philosophy. You would have to resort to the scientific method and Occam's Razor to identify physical historical writings and text in the real world.
Ben Schwartz: "Point 4...First, the scientists who originally formulated modern atomic theory were keenly aware of the ancient Greek idea of atoms. Hence the use of the term. To deny that continuity is to deny the heavy influence of Greek thought on Renaissance and Enlightenment era thinkers. Second, the conjecture of the ancient Greeks that you find so absurd was in fact the very real starting point for the scientific hypotheses of early practitioners such as Boyle and Newton."
When I was 5 years old, I was keenly aware that the sun was hot. I was keenly aware the sky was blue. I was keenly aware that the night sky was black. These are basic observations. Guessing that objects can all be broken down to a basic fundamental unit is an interesting, vaguely intelligent guess, but it is not a scientific hypothesis. Modern atomic theory pays homage to these ancient thinkers through the namesake, but it is insane to suppose that without the scientific method their ideas would be of any use in any way, shape, or form. Conversely, even if scientists started out with a hypothesis that there are NOT fundamental units comprising all objects they would STILL have arrived at a correct and useful conclusion by discovering that they were wrong after many experiments.
The whole point is that whether philosophy is "right or wrong" in the scientific sense is irrelevant, because science is the final judge anyway. Science does not need philosophy to progress and to make such a claim is to ignore the existence of modern science which (despite some minor overlap of individuals) operates virtually 100% independently.
For the remaining points, and in response to most "pro-philosophy" posts here:
The frustrating thing about this discussion is that (as Erst mentioned) philosophers try to claim everything is philosophy, even if you "don't know it". I am sure your rebuttal will involve nitpicking of word definitions, or, as in Points 1-3, you will claim that I am invoking philosophical assumptions in place of "hard facts". There's no point in these types of arguments, so I think I will have to make this my last post. Philosophy is intentionally nebulous and ill-defined, just like "God in the gaps", because the entire strategy is to AVOID being stuck to any specific, testable claim.
All I care about are testable, empirical claims. If you are going to claim that I don't "understand" philosophy, I want the metric system immutable standard of what "philosophy" is and what would be universally accepted by all "philosophers" as "knowledge of philosophy". But you can't provide that, because it doesn't exist, and that is by design. The mindset required to accept something like that makes it impossible to communicate in written language without going in circles because from the outset you are agreeing that nothing can be defined.
All I can say in closing is that science has proven and will continue to empirically prove its "worth" to people in the real world through immutable, inescapable facts. Philosophy is welcome to try, but it seems to be an established fact that science is winning that fight.
Posted by: Thana Z | Jun 16, 2012 6:39:21 AM
Thana, I would imagine that a good, solid, empirical test for determining a person's basic knowledge of philosophy could easily begin with the following question:
"1. How do you spell the father of western philosophy's name? (a) Plato, (b) Pluto."
This question alone would allow us to gather strong probabilistic evidence that those who answer (b) know next to nothing about philosophy. We could certainly decide, on these (empirical) grounds alone, that such persons have no right to make any generalizations about the discipline whatsoever.
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Jun 16, 2012 9:04:26 AM
Nick, they could simply guess right -- the odds of that are quite high.
Thana Z., you sound unemployed. If in fact you have enforced leisure, a look at the history of science should be amusing. In the late 1500s, astrology was a branch of applied mathematics. I say this not to maintain scientists of that era were idiots, only to suggest to you that science exists within culture. Please consider the notion.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Jun 16, 2012 11:41:32 AM
Thana Z,
I will be brief, since it doesn't appear we're making much progress. I'm disappointed that you didn't really take up my points about (2) and (3), because as I said they are crucial to an understanding of what philosophy comprises. If you want my attempt at a short definition of philosophy it would be: The interrogation of claims. Thus, as I also said, most everything you've done in this thread has in fact been philosophical argumentation.
I'll leave you with a couple of reading suggestions. First, you might want to look at some of August Comte's works, namely The Course in Positivist Philosophy (Cours de Philosophie Positive). This will most likely serve to do nothing but reinforce the beliefs that you've expressed here, but at least you might find yourself a philosophical champion. And then, perhaps, you wouldn't be so quick to dismiss philosophy entirely in the future.
If however you are open to something that might really challenge some of your beliefs about science, and how it "exists within culture" as Elatia aptly put it, a good start would be Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Just one more thing. Not that it's ultimately relevant to our discussion, but since you brought it up, I too am a scientist by education, training and employment. As such, it is my sincere hope that you can come to believe that practicing science and having an appreciation for philosophy need not be mutually exclusive.
Posted by: Ben Schwartz | Jun 16, 2012 4:22:59 PM
I wonder if working physicists are actually worse off learning philosophy. As a breed physicists gravitate toward simplistic philosophies perhaps, but we also change our views nimbly when we need to. In the early sixties most physicists would have made some sort of extreme positivist claim about unobservable entities not being real. Then quarks happened, and everyone became more nuanced about that, at least for that domain of investigation. And that without abandoning a suspicion of unobservable entities wholesale.
Good intuitive thought, combined with an ecosystem of people who disagree and experiment as arbiter, generally keeps things in decent shape. By contrast philosophers get into these sharply divided schools about every issue (not blaming them, that's just the terrain) and the tendency is strong to seek out arguments bolstering favorite intuitions. You can arm yourself with increasingly subtler arguments to support your view whatever it is. Professional philosophers, in their field of expertise, perhaps manage tolerably well to follow good arguments and reject bad ones, but my guess is giving physicists more philosophy-respect and training would just lead to people making more dogmatic and hard-line statements about the nature of dark matter or whether emergence refutes this or that view or what have you.
On the other hand, Lee Smolin (string theorist manque supposedly, but the argument sounds plausible regardless) has argued that physicists, especially those doing very speculative physics, need to be more philosophically and mathematically rigorous, since they don't have data to keep them honest. If you're going to do mathy, medieval theology, you should at least do it well, in other words.
[Also, and separately, if Kuhn is the center of gravity of philosophy of science, and the first book on a reading list, I am made uneasy right at the start.]
Posted by: prasad | Jun 16, 2012 5:18:31 PM
Well done from beginning to end, Ben. Thomas Kuhn is an early and enduring hero of mine, and I got to Auguste Comte through George Eliot -- but at least I got there.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Jun 16, 2012 5:22:55 PM
Thana Z., you sound unemployed.
That is just a classic one-liner! First literal LOL for me in a while.
Posted by: tomas | Jun 16, 2012 6:15:03 PM
Tomas/Elatia: "Thana Z., you sound unemployed.
That is just a classic one-liner! First literal LOL for me in a while."
Thanks, it's always comforting to see that a logically thought out and point by point analysis of an argument is rejoined by pure ad-hominem. Sorry I don't communicate in one-liners (and thusly indicate my elite socioeconomic/professional position).
Posted by: Thana Z | Jun 18, 2012 3:55:05 PM
Ben Schwartz: "I will be brief, since it doesn't appear we're making much progress. I'm disappointed that you didn't really take up my points about (2) and (3), because as I said they are crucial to an understanding of what philosophy comprises. ... If however you are open to something that might really challenge some of your beliefs about science, and how it "exists within culture" as Elatia aptly put it, a good start would be Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions."
I will also be brief, since as I mentioned I didn't anticipate that there would be a common ground and indeed it seems there isn't. If you are trained as a scientist it should be fairly obvious that we either agree on fundamental word definitions or we do not. You are essentially opting to label everything that isn't literally published science as philosophy which makes it impossible to debate. I have read a great many books but only a few lauded philosophy texts (required at university). I have never read more useless drivel. I am thankful for the recommendations but I can't honestly say I have any interest in reading them.
Nick: "Thana, I would imagine that a good, solid, empirical test for determining a person's basic knowledge of philosophy could easily begin with the following question:
"1. How do you spell the father of western philosophy's name? (a) Plato, (b) Pluto.""
You must be joking. You provided an example question but no answer. The answer determines whether this is an empirical test and in your answer you must prove who the "father of western philosophy" is as well as the spelling. Please unambiguously PROVE that a certain person is the "father of western philosophy" such that any other person would come to the exact same conclusion (i.e. prove it in such a way that there is no room for opinion or alternate interpretations).
Posted by: Thana Z | Jun 18, 2012 4:16:25 PM
Thana Z., I owe you an apology for being snarky. The reason you sounded unemployed to me is that you took mighty pains to thin-slice what could, without loss of cogency or "bottom," be argued with great economy. This is a sign someone has time on her hands, although it has other interpretations too. I think my churlishness may have distracted you from giving attention to the points made by Ben and others, and may have forced you to draw attention to your elite status -- by declining to describe it of course. Here's hoping that a more courteous reception, albeit one that stops short of deference, will on another occasion open the way for you to consider seriously what people who may not agree with you say, when they address the smaller issues you have raised as a point of view -- a philosophy, even -- rather than item by item.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Jun 18, 2012 4:38:20 PM
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