Ask a Philosopher

[Tahuti]

Why is Bertrand Russell such a flippant dick? History of Western Philosophy had such great potential.

Betrand Russell just sucks on ethics. He is just awful in that department. He is awesome on epistomology and logic but his ethics are terribly over-selfreferential and reliant on the same kind of fallacies he sought to combat.

However, despite being the most well known for the things I like the least of him (and you presumably too), his most enduring contributions are to maths, as well as all his philosophy that isn't ethical.

 

[lovett]

Okay, how do you stand on the mind/body problem? What're the thoughts on how consciousness manifests and what kind of evidence will be required?

Secondly, are there any interesting philosophy podcasts?

I can't help you with the podcasts, i'm afraid. I can say some things about the mind/body problem. The question (as you know) is how 'mental' things relate to 'physical' things. So how beliefs, pains, emotions and so on relate to brain states and events happening in the nervous system. And maybe some things happening outside the body too. I'll talk about mental states and physical states for convenience, although these are really placeholders for complex processes we don't understand.

I think the mental states must be identical to physical states. The reason for this is the problem of mental causation. There are four claims in tension:

1. The physical world is causally closed (all physical effects have a physical cause).
2. Mental states have some physical effects.
3. These effects are not causally overdetermined.
4. Mental states are not identical to physical states.

The first premise seems to draw overwhelming support from modern science, especially physics. The second claim is very hard to drop. If our mental states are not causally efficacious then our my words aren't caused by my beliefs, my movements aren't caused by my desires, my twitches aren't caused by my pains and so on and so forth. So almost everything I believe about my life is false. The third claim is also pretty costly to drop. If this is false, those things our beliefs et al cause are overdetermined in the same way the death of someone executed by firing squad is overdetermined. And accepting that seems utterly at odds with our parsimony considerations. So that leaves the fourth claim. So I think this claim must be false, mental states are identical to physical states.

That leaves big question about just which mental states are which physical states. We cannot answer these questions yet, because our neurobiological understanding isn't advanced enough. We don't really know what a brain state 'is'. But I think we might in the future. We will find out by finding something that had the same causal role of the relevant mental states. So, a belief will be just that brain state which has the causal role of beliefs. And the same for pains and desires and so on. What we do know, if we want to keep the causal efficacy of the mental, is that some form of physicalism must be true.

Does Mary learn anything when she sees red for the first time?

Probably, yes. A recent, popular, suggestion is that she learns a 'phenomenal concept'. Phenomenal concepts are concepts used for storing information about some phenomena in particular. So we could imagine a phenomenal concept regarding a particular bird, and with the use of that concept we stored information about that particular bird. That that bird was injured, or called Othello, or flew slowly or whatever. So Mary might learn the phenomenal concept of red, and this is a concept which helps her easily store information about red in particular - its relations to the other colours for instance.

Importantly, a concept like this does not indicate that Mary learns a new ontological fact. The phenomenal concept is 'fine-grained' in the way that the concepts 'water' and 'h20' are fine-grained. When we learn that water is H20 we certainly learn something, but we don't learn any new ontological fact, only a new way of relating two concepts. So Mary learning something does not mean there are some facts which escape the physicalist story, in the way that is damaging to physicalism.

 

[Borachio]

Yes, apologies: I misspoke. I meant to say that convey the notion that there could be several maximally coherent ethical systems which didn't contradict one another. So the disjunction of these system is what one should believe. If they did contradict each other, as you rightly comprehend, that would be very bad news for the combination of reflective equilibrium and moral realism.

As per moral nihilism, there are a number of things wrong with moral nihilism. Firstly, there are no good arguments for moral nihilism: this is my opinion, of course. There are no arguments which should lead us to think moral facts don't exist. That's the most important thing, because I think most people become nihilist under the misapprehension that some argument is, in fact, a good argument for nihilism. Unfortunately, I cannot deal with all the arguments for nihilism at a stroke, because they don't all fail in the same way. But I think one of the most persuasive things to say here is to make an analogy between moral facts and facts about our reasons.

By 'reasons' I mean the sort of thing -whatever it is- that rationally justifies us in doing some action. So, if I am thirsty, my thirst is a reason for me drinking the clear liquid (water) in the cup in front of me. It justifies my drinking that liquid and allows me to defend myself from the charge of irrationality vis a vis the drinking. Moreover, reasons are at least prima facie objective. Suppose that unbeknownst to me the clear liquid in the class was actually poison. Then I would have no reason to drink it, even though I thought it would quench my thirst. So our reasons are not just what we think our reasons are. And reasons are very important; we try to do everything for reasons. And it is very hard to deny that reasons exist - like the nihilist does about moral facts. That is partly because reasons mediate what we should and should not believe. I should only believe P if I have a reason to believe P. But then, if reasons don't exist I shouldn't believe reasons don't exist. And that is because I have no reason for that belief. That isn't a contradiction, but it is a very unhappy situation to be in. We would need a strong argument to accept it, I think.

How this links up to moral facts is that moral facts -facts about what is right and wrong- are (or can be) in all respects on par with facts about our reasons. So if there are arguments which lead us to deny the existence of moral facts, it is highly surprising that we don't deny the existence of reasons. Indeed, many people thinks moral obligations just are reasons. But we really don't want to deny the existence of reasons. So that should make us equally reluctant to accept unexamined any purported argument that concludes moral facts don't exist.

I should say this particular analogy is a particularly vivid demonstration of a general point: error theories are bad. That is to say, theories which attribute massive error to people should -all else being equal- be rejected. That is because people are usually right (else we would be locked in scepticism!). Moral nihilism is an error theory par excellence. That is because our moral discourse pre-supposes the existence of moral facts. So, unless there are good arguments for nihilism, we certainly shouldn't accept it.

You argue your case well.

However, the idea that "error theories are bad" and that "people are usually right" is interesting. Does it have any general applicability beyond ethics? Experience would tend to suggest that it does not. For, I hate to mention, people have generally believed (and continue to do so, in large measure) in some kind of afterlife, or deity (however conceived) - yet philosophers (as I have encountered them) seem to dispute the existence of either.

 

[Winston Hughes]

I think the best answer to this is: not in a way special to philosophy. That is to say, it would be great if people outside academia could do cutting edge work in philosophy. It would also be great if they could do cutting edge work in mathematics or physics. But, by and large, they can't. That is because all these fields require very extensive training to do cutting edge work, and the time in which to do it. So, although it would be good if everyone had the relevant capacity, I am reluctant to call the lack of it a 'problem' (partly, because it is obviously insoluble).

Maybe you mean to get at something else with your question. If so, feel free to explain.

Being as life experiences play an central role in determining how we see things, it occurs to me that all philosophers having very similar - and very cloistered - experiences might have a narrowing effect, particularly with regards to moral and political questions.

Looking at the life stories of many of history's most influential thinkers, there is great variety of life experience, with many of them having had other jobs before or during their careers in philosophy (Socrates and Rawls as soldiers, for example, or Cicero and Burke as politicians). Perhaps I'm wrong about this, but it seems to me that would-be philosophers today have little opportunity or incentive to do anything with their lives other than study philosophy in the highly-structured, socially-insulated, and rather uniform environments we find in our universities.

So I guess what I'm asking is whether there might be some value in trying to broaden the life experiences of professional philosophers, and perhaps to encourage people from different backgrounds to take up the subject.

 

[ParkCungHee]

You argue your case well.

However, the idea that "error theories are bad" and that "people are usually right" is interesting. Does it have any general applicability beyond ethics?

Generally, most people stick to this rule with epistemology as well.

 

[Gary Childress]

What reply do you have to the common criticism (which obviously comes from an empirical position) that philosophy doesn't prove anything?

Lovett has kindly given me permission to answer questions in this thread and I feel strangely compelled to answer this one.

My initial reply would be to ask the critic exactly what is meant by the word "doesn't" or the word "philosophy"? It seems like a rather poorly constructed sentence on the face of it and therefore a bit difficult to answer. Is it to say people who professionally call themselves philosophers can not possibly prove anything they claim or that they haven't proven anything they've claimed yet? Or is it to say that the methods used by philosophers can't prove or haven't proven anything yet? Usually when one uses the word "doesn't" it is used in a sentence with something specific in mind like "The fact that I am holding the murder weapon doesn't prove I killed the victim." And "philosophy" is a rather broad term, sort of like the word "science". If I say "science doesn't prove anything", it's a bit hard, at least for me, to get a grasp of what is being stated. However, I can provide some answers to some of the alternative questions posed above:

1. People who professionally call themselves philosophers can not possibly prove anything they claim.

My short answer: I would think it depends upon what one is claming and on what sort of evidence they are basing their claim. Many different philosophers have made many different claims based on many different types of evidence. For example: I would point out that Descartes claim that "I can know with absolute certainty that I exist" is pretty darn compelling. I don't see how I can possibly doubt that I exist?

2. People who professionally call themselves philosophers haven't proven anything they've claimed yet.

My short answer: I think many philosophers have proven many things they've claimed in varying degrees. I think Descartes' "cogito" argument proves beyond any possible doubt I may have that I exist. I think Socrates (or perhaps Plato) gives reasonably good proof in the Euthryphro that Euthyphro didn't know what piety meant. Frank Jackson and Thomas Nagel give us reasonably good proof that consciousness cannot be simply explained and understood in full using methods we typically use to study material objects. And I think most philosophers worthy of their title acknowledge the limits of their proofs, what they prove and what they don't. For example: many phenomenologists make the claim that they are simply analyzing their own conscious beliefs and experiences. They "bracket" the truth of their claims (as Husserl termed it (well he used the term "epoche")), essentially meaning they don't claim that what they experience is objective fact, only that it is what they experience. The most credible phenonomenolgists don't make any larger claims beyond what their experiences warrant. And I think the methods of phenomenology and phenomenologists are very useful methods in understanding ourselves and what we think.

3. The methods philosophers use can't prove anything.

My short answer: Again, many different philosophers have used many different methods to prove many different things with varying degrees of success. Some of these methods include, logic, empirical observation, thought experiments or they may use pure speculation. Again most philosophers worthy of the title acknowledge the limits of what their methods may or may not prove.

4. The methods philosophers use haven't proven anything yet.

My short answer: Pretty much the same or very similar answers to the ones above apply here as well.

In short, I think it is a gross mischaracterization of philosophy in general, usually based on lack of exposure to it, to see all philosophers as making wild outrageous claims based upon nothing but pure speculation and whimsy. Many of the philosophers we know today as the great ones have been wrong about a great many things, but I think philosophy as an institution has matured very much over the last few hundred years or so very much like science has progressed from astrology to astronomy, from alchemy to metallurgy. the vast majority of philosophers worthy of the title today recognize things such as that Thales was wildly mistaken about what the world is made of. Many philosophers today are very much in touch with the sciences and empirical studies. Yes, there are nutters out there who throw around a lot of fancy language in an attempt to create a smokescreen to conceal ignorance and promote public perception of themselves but a good way to eventually lose your creidbility among the philosophical community is to cling to outrageous and ridiculous claims. Plus I don't think it is fair to brand philosophy based upon those who've made mistakes anymore than it is to brand astronomy based upon people like Ptolemy.

At it's core, philosophy is the quest for things like knowledge, truth and wisdom. It seems to me that these are and have always been worthy things to seek.

Being as life experiences play an central role in determining how we see things, it occurs to me that all philosophers having very similar - and very cloistered - experiences might have a narrowing effect, particularly with regards to moral and political questions.

Looking at the life stories of many of history's most influential thinkers, there is great variety of life experience, with many of them having had other jobs before or during their careers in philosophy (Socrates and Rawls as soldiers, for example, or Cicero and Burke as politicians). Perhaps I'm wrong about this, but it seems to me that would-be philosophers today have little opportunity or incentive to do anything with their lives other than study philosophy in the highly-structured, socially-insulated, and rather uniform environments we find in our universities.

So I guess what I'm asking is whether there might be some value in trying to broaden the life experiences of professional philosophers, and perhaps to encourage people from different backgrounds to take up the subject.

I think Mr Hughes makes a very important point about philosophy and one's socio-economic background, if I am interpreting his question correctly. In some senses philosophy is a bit different from physics or mathematics which, at least on the surface, would seem to be relatively value neutral disciplines. But philosophy? Philosophy is sort of where everything comes together. The scientist can build the proverbial better mousetrap, but it's the philosopher who ponders exactly what we should do with it or how it "ought" to be used (or in some unfortunate cases who to use it on). In this sense philosophy is not quite as "innocent" as the hard sciences.

I myself have no definitive answer to this question but I would be interested in hearing answers from those wiser and more knowledgable than myself. Should some effort be made by whatever powers that be to "broaden" the life experience of professional philosophers or to encourage people from different backgrounds to take up the subject?

 

[Perfection]

Lovett is a P-Zombie and not actually a person therefore we can troll "him" mercilessly without feeling bad about it because "he" lacks any real experience of humiliation as our cunning jabs cut "him" down to size.

I wonder what the little turd has to say about that!

 

[lovett]

Why is Bertrand Russell such a flippant dick? History of Western Philosophy had such great potential.

How much of philosophy, do you think, is a search for truth, and how much is people musing about how they think the world works?

What reply do you have to the common criticism (which obviously comes from an empirical position) that philosophy doesn't prove anything?

Your first question is somewhat leading I've only read his work in logic and language, which is sublime. As such, I have no opinions about his other work. On the second question: I don't really see the antipathy here. I think philosophy is mainly about searching for truth, but in many cases the method is thinking about how the world works. This is because the truths are often about how the world works: at least in a broad sense.

On your third question, I largely agree with what Gary has said ('largely agreeing' is a great way to avoid culpability for any flaws in a position one hasn't spent too much time thinking about). Succinctly, the issue here is one of evidence. Philosophy does have standards of evidence. Some of this is a priori and some of this a posteriori (and the line between those two is very blurry). So, because of that, philosophy can justify us in believing certain things. And I don't see any other useful way to talk about 'proof'. Now saying that doesn't mean denying that philosophy is often a lot more speculative than the sciences and philosophical theories are often a lot less secure. But this is a different in quantity, not in quality.

Being as life experiences play an central role in determining how we see things, it occurs to me that all philosophers having very similar - and very cloistered - experiences might have a narrowing effect, particularly with regards to moral and political questions.

Looking at the life stories of many of history's most influential thinkers, there is great variety of life experience, with many of them having had other jobs before or during their careers in philosophy (Socrates and Rawls as soldiers, for example, or Cicero and Burke as politicians). Perhaps I'm wrong about this, but it seems to me that would-be philosophers today have little opportunity or incentive to do anything with their lives other than study philosophy in the highly-structured, socially-insulated, and rather uniform environments we find in our universities.

So I guess what I'm asking is whether there might be some value in trying to broaden the life experiences of professional philosophers, and perhaps to encourage people from different backgrounds to take up the subject.

Well, I don't know. I don't see any reason why 'life experience' would improve theoretical philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, logic and so on. This seems a bit like saying a mathematician would create better theorems if they had more life experience. So that does confine it to ethics and political philosophy.

But of what help is life experience here? Well, one help is empathy. Living amongst the poor and those in suffering is a great way to remove callous lack of compassion. But, to be frank, this is not a problem I think most professional philosophers suffer from. In these fields philosophers tend to be far more radical than the 'average citizen'. A majority of philosophers working on justice would probably say that justice demands equality. And, of course, many philosophers -especially in these fields- are highly engaged with wider issue. Michael Dummett springs to mind (actually a metaphysics guy): he put his philosophical career on hold to campaign on immigration issues. So I don't think this source of help really adds up to much.

So, what does that leave? Well, i'm not really sure. Which is another way of saying that i'm not sure there is actually any particular value in broadening the life experience of philosophers. Now, obviously having a broad array of life experience is good for all sorts of things. But I wouldn't advise anyone to spend ten years in middle-management rather than ten years studying philosophy, if they wanted to become a better philosopher. In the same way I wouldn't advise a physicist to do that. I suppose this is a long way of saying that although varied life experience are valuable, I don't see any reason to believe a lack of them is a particular problem in philosophy. Certainly, no more than it is in any subject. Kant springs to mind here. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that Kant had no life experiences. He spent his whole life in very close proximity to Koenigsberg. And despite that, he is the most influential philosopher of the modern era.

 

[Gary Childress]

Well, I don't know. I don't see any reason why 'life experience' would improve theoretical philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, logic and so on. This seems a bit like saying a mathematician would create better theorems if they had more life experience. So that does confine it to ethics and political philosophy.

But of what help is life experience here? Well, one help is empathy. Living amongst the poor and those in suffering is a great way to remove callous lack of compassion. But, to be frank, this is not a problem I think most professional philosophers suffer from. In these fields philosophers tend to be far more radical than the 'average citizen'. A majority of philosophers working on justice would probably say that justice demands equality. And, of course, many philosophers -especially in these fields- are highly engaged with wider issue. Michael Dummett springs to mind (actually a metaphysics guy): he put his philosophical career on hold to campaign on immigration issues. So I don't think this source of help really adds up to much.

So, what does that leave? Well, i'm not really sure. Which is another way of saying that i'm not sure there is actually any particular value in broadening the life experience of philosophers. Now, obviously having a broad array of life experience is good for all sorts of things. But I wouldn't advise anyone to spend ten years in middle-management rather than ten years studying philosophy, if they wanted to become a better philosopher. In the same way I wouldn't advise a physicist to do that. I suppose this is a long way of saying that although varied life experience are valuable, I don't see any reason to believe a lack of them is a particular problem in philosophy. Certainly, no more than it is in any subject. Kant springs to mind here. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that Kant had no life experiences. He spent his whole life in very close proximity to Koenigsberg. And despite that, he is the most influential philosopher of the modern era.

Not to mention Marx didn't grow up in a poor working class family either, which didn't seem to inhibit his ability to become a leading voice for the plight of the underclasses. Though, he did more or less refuse any possibility of living a life of material comfort during most of his professional career.

But now I do think of radical feminist philosophers as a possible counterpoint to your position above. in what sense might it be the case that feminist philosophers as a group tend to be more radical by virtue of so many leading and key feminist philosophers being women? Do you think there is perhaps more a sense of urgency in feminist thinking due to this fact? I mean if most feminist philosophers were men, I would think that would have a kind of taming effect on the movement. We wouldn't hear nearly as much pointed criticism of patriarchy, I'm guessing.

For example, maybe something along the lines of 1% of the Earth's population directly controls 99% of its resources. There is a lot to go around and yet there are many millions of people out there with virtually nothing. Now, as someone who lives a life of relative comfort I can make this observation but my sense of urgency over the matter is perhaps somewhat blunted by the fact that I'm not really among those adversely affected by the situation. Granted there are philosophers out there who have made perhaps token efforts toward the social justice debate but I wonder what effect it would have to bring more voices to the fore from people who have more "stake" in the debate (kind of an inverse pun going on here perhaps)?

So if it were the case that broadening the backgrounds of philosophers might have an effect on the character of philosophy, I think in that case it would make Mr. Hughes' question much more relevant, would this have a positive or negative effect on philosophy or perhaps society in general? (Sort of along the lines of is it a good or bad thing that so many feminists are women?)

 

[Mise]

I agree with Winston Hughes that the relatively small sliver of the population who end up being academic philosophers are disproportionately affluent white men, but I agree with Lovett that this problem is hardly unique to philosophy. And of all the problems that the dominance of affluent white men in positions of power cause, this is probably one of the least significant.

 

[Gary Childress]

I agree with Winston Hughes that the relatively small sliver of the population who end up being academic philosophers are disproportionately affluent white men, but I agree with Lovett that this problem is hardly unique to philosophy. And of all the problems that the dominance of affluent white men in positions of power cause, this is probably one of the least significant.

I don't here pretend to know the answer to Mr. Hughes question, and I know nothing of your ethnic or socio-economic background but I am curious what you are basing your final conclusion on? Do you think philosophy is relatively ineffectual in human affairs that affluent white dominance of the field could not possibly pose a significant problem for the wider majority? Can you flesh out some reasons to believe your conclusion a little?

Thanks.

 

[Mise]

Speaking specifically about the last sentence you mean? I think that affluent white men being in positions of real power (parliament, heads of state, high court judges, CEOs, even charities) are much more significant, yes. And yes, the gender gap in engineering or medicine, for example, is much more of a problem than the gender gap in the specific case of philosophy, because engineering and medicine are disciplines that confer wealth, power, and social status to underprivileged groups, lifting those groups out of their underprivilege. I won't argue this particular point; I will merely state that the extent to which academic philosophy has the ability to do similar social lifting is not even close to the amount of heavy lifting engineering and medicine can do. If a genie popped out of a lamp and said to me, "give me the name of an academic discipline or profession and I will magically correct the gender, racial and socioeconomic imbalance in that profession," I would not pick academic philosophy. The consequence of not enough women/minorities/poor people in academic philosophy is merely that there are not that many women/minorities/poor people doing academic philosophy; this may harm philosophy as an academic discipline, but it won't necessarily harm women, minorities and poor people more generally. Not enough women, minorities and poor people in politics has huge consequences, because the decisions made by affluent white male politicians invariably screw over women, minorities and poor people. Not enough WM&PP in medicine, engineering, law, etc has huge consequences, because WM&PP are being systematically denied access to middle class wealth, status and power. Not enough women in academic philosophy is much less consequential.

You could probably make a decent argument to say that academic philosophy is just as important as politics, if not more so, and the gender (inter alia) imbalances are just as consequential as the gender imbalances in politics -- no doubt you philosophy types are very skilled at this and I'm sure you could construct a perfectly decent argument for that. But I won't buy it

 

[ParkCungHee]

I'd also throw in that like almost all the Humanities, Philosophy has the advantage that even if it is practiced by a highly selective branch of humanity, it is a common practice of an academic philosopher to be exposed to worldviews different from their own, whether through Classical, Medieval or Asian philosophy.

 

[Borachio]

Generally, most people stick to this rule with epistemology as well.

Do they? So, most people are correct in not holding any particular views about epistemology at all? Since most people probably have never heard of the word.

But perhaps I'm being unnecessarily flippant.

Perhaps you mean most epistemologists stick with the rule that most people (meaning epistemologists?) are correct?

Isn't this just investigation by consensus, then?

I must surely be missing the whole point of "this rule" somehow.

I have a feeling that "most people" generally try very hard to pick holes in others' arguments all the time. And that they rather assume that other people are probably incorrect.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Do they? So, most people are correct in not holding any particular views about epistemology at all? Since most people probably have never heard of the word.

I mean that, as a general rule of philosophy (not a formal rule) you would need extraordinary evidence to believe that most people were wrong about their senses, or the logical application of thought.

Not the particular applications mind you, but I mean in total.

While there are some philosophers that will argue the case, most would agree that it would take extraordinary evidence to get us to believe everything our senses experience or our mind's reason, or both is pure illusion and that we should detach ourselves from them entirely.

 

[dutchfire]

much like the best mathematical system is that which contains all and only mathematical truths

I haven't read through all of the remaining posts yet, but got stuck here. Gödel would be sad.
To make something of a question out of it, to what degree does your position of moral realism depend on physical and/or mathematical realism? I think these latter realisms are far from controversial.

 

[lovett]

I haven't read through all of the remaining posts yet, but got stuck here. Gödel would be sad.
To make something of a question out of it, to what degree does your position of moral realism depend on physical and/or mathematical realism? I think these latter realisms are far from controversial.

No, I don't think he would be. Now, i'm no expert on Godel's incompleteness theorems so maybe i'm entirely wrong. But if I remember rightly the theorems prove that any formal system with finite axioms cannot be both consistent and complete: where complete means one is able to prove all arithmetical truths within the system. But that clearly doesn't mean there is not a system with infinite axioms which cannot be both consistent and complete. So maybe this is the system we would need to express all and only the mathematical truths. The point here is that we don't need a proof of something for that thing to be true: this is why we are allowed axioms in the first place. Of course, if we take this point seriously we can also see that we don't need to pursue completeness to get mathematical realism. We could have a formal system with finite axioms which was consistent, but in which we couldn't prove certain arithmetical truths. But lack of proof does not entail lack of truth: I have no proof one was or another as to whether there is a teapot orbiting Betelgeuse, but I think there is a fact of the matter here. Concurrently, I might lack a proof for certain statements in arithmetic, but consider them true all the same.

On your question, yes: it is true that moral realism is part of a broader realist project. But the vast majority of ordinary people (and philosophers) are realists in this wider sense. Although the majority of philosophers are moral realists, non-philsophers are much less committed. So I make no bones about focusing on moral realism in particular: it is hear that realism is in jeopardy. The task, then, is to show moral facts are on a par with facts like those in geography, astronomy or ecology. We cannot, after all, enumerate all our presuppositions in every discussion (my discussion also relies on the falsity of Pyrrhonian scepticism and of meaning scepticism, of the inapplicability of paraconsistent logics and many other things beside).

 

[dutchfire]

From my brief encounters with people who study the fundamentals of mathematics, the most popular answer to the question "Does mathematics describe things that really exist" is no. Anecdotally, I would say that the more someone has studied the fundamentals of math, the less likely she is to answer the question with "Yes".

 

[Ayatollah So]

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.

I also found him a little irritating, but looked past it because he's so damn right. There really are a lot of processes that seem to be generating nice, predictable, maybe even normally-distributed statistics, until suddenly they aren't. Oversimplification is rife. At least that's what I find in engineering, and I'm inclined to take his word for it as applied to business and finance

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?

I'd say those two items are huge in philosophy, yet in each case there are plenty of topics one can address without knowing the theorems. Philosophers who want to talk meta-logic or philosophy of mathematics, are going to know Gödels theorems, or lose face quickly. Similarly for Bell's Theorem and many areas in philosophy of physics, or even some issues in metaphysics. But if you're all about ethics, you can probably skip both.

 

[lovett]

From my brief encounters with people who study the fundamentals of mathematics, the most popular answer to the question "Does mathematics describe things that really exist" is no. Anecdotally, I would say that the more someone has studied the fundamentals of math, the less likely she is to answer the question with "Yes".

Well, are you talking about mathematicians here? Because one can be an excellent mathematician without knowing anything much about philosophy of mathematics. Command and understanding of the first-order subject does not entail that of the second-order (hence, why one can be an excellent biblical scholar without any grasp of the ontological argument). One cannot, of course, be an excellent philosopher of maths without knowing anything much about mathematics.

This survey surveys the views of professional philosophers on philosophical issues. Unfortunately, there is no direct question on mathematical realism. There is a question about 'abstract objects'. Numbers are often taken to be abstract objects. Here, roughly forty percent are 'Platonists', which roughly means they believe abstract objects are a fundamental part of the world. These people are almost certainly mathematical realists. Slightly less than this are 'nominalists': they believe abstract objects are constructed out of the world by how we categorise things. This is not the same as mathematical anti-realism, but certainly more conducive to it. I couldn't estimate how many of these people will be mathematical anti-realists, and of what stripe.

I lean towards realism. That's because I think we should believe those things exist which our best theory of the world quantifies over. That is why I believe in electrons and photons: our current best theories of the world quantify over electrons and photon. They need such things to exist in order to explain the world. These theories also quantify over numbers (or, at least, sets). So for that reason, I believe numbers exist.