Ask a Philosopher

[lovett]

I have some training in philosophy. Ask me things about philosophy, and I will answer them.

 

[Cutlass]

I personally find philosophy kind of inaccessible. Do you get that complaint from others?

 

[dutchfire]

Do you also do philosophy of science? How is the collaboration between philosophers and physicists/mathematicians?

 

[Kyriakos]

Interesting thread I too studied/graduated on this subject. Although after university i seldom read any text that was entirely philosophical (mostly read literature which had philosophical elements)

 

[Tahuti]

Did you read Nassim Nicholas Taleb? What do you think of him?

 

[kiwitt]

How has philosophy improved the lives of 'average' people?

 

[Perfection]

Didn't Ayn Rand make philosophy obsolete?

 

[GoodSarmatian]

In the olden days science was part of philosophy (natural philosophy, political philosophy etc.)
Now we have science.
What is left of philosophy ?
(Why) Does philosophy matter ?

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

What is your favourite paradox?

 

[lovett]

I personally find philosophy kind of inaccessible. Do you get that complaint from others?

There's a lot that could be said on accessibility. I don't think it is surprising that philosophy is inaccessible. I find engineering kind of inaccessible. That is simply because I lack the training and skills to quickly understand the subject. Philosophy -when done well- also uses a particular set of tools and requires a particular set of skills. One obvious one is the employment of formal logic. Without these skills the subject can be quite opaque. But the opacity here -I think- is down to the fact that philosophy is trying to be a specialized, rigorous discipline with various best practices. So it is the same opacity one finds in any subject with such ambitions.

Having said that I think there are some very clear introductory texts on philosophy (Simon Blackburn's Think springs to mind). A mistake some people make -i would say- is not reading introductory texts and instead reading 'classics' directly. Classics are classics because of their insight and originality, but it is very hard to both think of an original idea and formulate it in the clearest possible way for a 21st century audience... I think it is much easier to understand segments of this subject by sticking to modern philosophy.

Do you also do philosophy of science? How is the collaboration between philosophers and physicists/mathematicians?

I've personally never studied philosophy of science in particular. Most of the subject matter is a variation on the problem of induction. On the second question, the right answer is 'it varies'. Occasionally, philosophers mangle the science they use, because they don't really understand it. I think perhaps I have seen this most vis a vis psychology. But there are also excellent employments of science and excellent work in philosophy of science. I could give you some examples but the exposition might be a little long,but do ask if you want me to. I'd say philosophers are far more interested in the work of physicists than that of mathematicians. That is because new theorems and discoveries in mathematics (set theory apart) tend not to change our view of how the world, in the broadest sense, is. Whereas those in physics obviously do.

Did you read Nassim Nicholas Taleb? What do you think of him?

I've read some of the Black Swan. I found his style slightly irritating to be honest. I can easily believe he is right, but (in that book at least) he seemed a little argument light and anecdote heavy. And to slightly exaggerate his own originality.

In the olden days science was part of philosophy (natural philosophy, political philosophy etc.)
Now we have science.
What is left of philosophy ?
(Why) Does philosophy matter ?

Well: "Lot's of things." There is one obvious, vitally important, area where the sciences just don't have anything to say. That is the field of normative philosophy. Ethics makes up the majority of this field; this is the subject of how we should act, of what constitutes a good life and who we should aim to be. This seems to me the most important field of human enquiry. Normative philosophy also includes political philosophy -questions about how we should order society- and aesthetics. The sciences have so little to say here because these are not empirical topics in the same way the sciences are. To be precise, they are not topics we can do experiments in; at least not fruitfully. This is another way of saying they are 'a priori' and the sciences are a posteriori.

Having said that, I don't think interest in philosophy should be confined to the normative. My personal view of metaphysics, for instance, is as a subject contiguous with the sciences. So in metaphysics we ask how the world, in the very broadest sense, hangs together. And this informs and is crucially informed by physics. Physics is definitely the most powerful tool in answering this question (and one finds a lot of philosophers have physicist envy on this point, sometimes to their detriment).

But even so, that does not mean it is the only tool or it is a tool which can answer all the questions. So, one fascinating question -for instance- in metaphysics is when -if- 'composite objects' fundamentally exist. A composite object is any object with parts. Multiple simple objects -putatively- make up a composite object by being part of that object. So the question here is a quite startling one; it is where tables, chairs, houses, humans can so on fundamentally exist. And the wider question is whether we need the notion of 'parthood' or 'composition' to really describe how the world, in the very broadest sense, hangs together. Physics cannot answer this question (although it can inform it), and that is because many of the competing positions are experimentally indiscernible. So nihilism -the position that composite objects never exist- is impossible to experimentally distinguish from universalism - the position that any set of simple objects compose a composite object. That is because nihilists in this field don't deny the existence of simple object arranged in certain ways; tablewise, chairwise, humanwise and so on. So here the tools of experimental physics cannot really help us, so we turn to philosophy. I think this sort of issue is replicated in many areas - philosophy of mind seems like a prominent example.

How has philosophy improved the lives of 'average' people?

See above as to whether philosophy matters, especially vis a vis its normative side. On the letter of your question; I don't really know. For that question, you would be better off asking a historian of ideas. Having said that, I can speculate. I believe people sometimes do things because of ideas. I believe some of these ideas are ideas about ethics. So, people sometimes do things because of what they think is the right thing to do. If you accept this fairly anodyne train of argument then ethics -at least- might have been rather helpful to ordinary people. It has helped them actually do the right think and it has prompted other people to do the right thing as regards such ordinary people.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

I'll take it from here guys. Questions?

 

[dutchfire]

I've personally never studied philosophy of science in particular. Most of the subject matter is a variation on the problem of induction. On the second question, the right answer is 'it varies'. Occasionally, philosophers mangle the science they use, because they don't really understand this. I think perhaps I have seen this most vis a vis psychology. But there are also excellent employments of science and excellent work in philosophy of science. I could give you some examples but the exposition might be a little long,but do ask if you want me to. I'd say philosophers are far more interested in the work of physicists than that of mathematicians. That is because new theorems and discoveries in mathematics (set theory apart) tend not to change our view of how the world, in the broadest sense, is. Whereas those in physics obviously do.

Well, I'd be interested to what extent philosophers are aware of things like Gödels theorems, or the Bell inequalities. And if you think it is important to know about these things. I imagine it is sort of difficult to understand e.g. Bell's inequalities without significant training in quantum mechanics, but on the other hand I would expect them (and quantum mechanics in general) to be very important when trying to answer certain philosophical questions. How is this dealt with?

 

[lovett]

Well, I'd be interested to what extent philosophers are aware of things like Gödels theorems, or the Bell inequalities. And if you think it is important to know about these things. I imagine it is sort of difficult to understand e.g. Bell's inequalities without significant training in quantum mechanics, but on the other hand I would expect them (and quantum mechanics in general) to be very important when trying to answer certain philosophical questions. How is this dealt with?

Well, I'm not very aware of them. I don't really understand these things. But there are -fortunately enough- philosophers working in relevant areas who do understand these things. And sometimes they say things even I can understand. I think you're entirely right that people need a quite significant training the the relevant physics to get this understanding, and this is solved by the simple expedient of having a quite significant training in the relevant physics. So there are many philosophers who have in fact studied quantum mechanics. There is, for instance, a physics and philosophy dual honours undergraduate degree at my university, clearly designed with this sort of conundrum in mind. So to summarise: there are many areas -not all- in which philosophers need a fairly advanced scientific understanding to do good work, and there are no easy shortcuts. They just have to go ahead and get the scientific understanding. And that is what they do.

 

[Agent327]

Didn't Ayn Rand make philosophy obsolete?

Hardly. Developing a system isn't what you would call groundbreaking in modern philosophy.

By the way, kudos on the thread. (I tried starting one on the subject, but got trashed by... philosophers.)

 

[Perfection]

Did you read Nassim Nicholas Taleb? What do you think of him?

I've read some of the Black Swan. I found his style slightly irritating to be honest. I can easily believe he is right, but (in that book at least) he seemed a little argument light and anecdote heavy. And to slightly exaggerate his own originality.

This is pretty much my exact experience with him too.

 

[Tahuti]

What do you think are the defining characteristics of Analytic and Continental Philosophy? My take is that Analytics seem to be interested in epistemology, mathematics and linguistics and seek connection to the natural sciences while Continentals are more interested in ethics, aesthetics and existential philosophy and tend to have very literary style as opposed to the almost scientific dissertation style most analytic philosophy is written. Do you agree?

I also occasionally hear there are supposed to be insurmountable differences between the two schools. I strongly disagree, having both their own strengths and weaknesses, especially considering they tend to be interested in very different subjects. But how much do you think this is true?

This is pretty much my exact experience with him too.

Honestly, I find his style refreshing, and sure as hell laughed out loud at several of his passages, both in the Black Swan and Antifragile.

 

[Perfection]

What do you think are the defining characteristics of Analytic and Continental Philosophy? My take is that Analytics seem to be interested in epistemology, mathematics and linguistics and seek connection to the natural sciences while Continentals are more interested in ethics, aesthetics and existential philosophy and tend to have very literary style as opposed to the almost scientific dissertation style most analytic philosophy is written. Do you agree?

Interesting podcast on that idea:

http://philosophybites.com/2013/05/...ys-two-cultures-analytic-and-continental.html

 

[Borachio]

I'll take it from here guys. Questions?

Is this a question?

 

[Perfection]

wit filosofer is da best wit one is da wurst?

 

[MilesGregarius]

wit filosofer is da best wit one is da wurst?

Nietzschewurst in Blätterteig?