

Philosophy - What's the use? - Jun8
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/philosophy-whats-the-use/?hp

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Jun8
Since it's a meta-discipline (i.e. thinking about thinking) philosophy has
been pooh-poohed and vilified since ancient times; or philosophers have been
elevated to god-like stature. The danger in the current times, I think, is
that they are fast disappearing from the public consciousness, eliciting
neither of these strong responses that they did in the past.

This is too bad since, like it or not, we need them more than ever (or as much
as always, depending on your view about the progress or lack thereof of the
world):

"... if I say I would never kill an innocent person, does that mean that I
wouldn’t order the bombing of an enemy position if it might kill some
civilians? Does a commitment to democratic elections require one to accept a
fair election that puts an anti-democratic party into power? Answering such
questions requires careful conceptual distinctions, for example, between
direct and indirect results of actions, or between a morality of intrinsically
wrong actions and a morality of consequences."

Those are not abstractions but common questions that we are facing _today_
(e.g. using UAVs in Afghanistan or the rise of Islam in Egyptian elections).
Add to these the important questions that are perennial election debates in
the US: gay marriage (check how your argument fares against e.g, polygamy),
abortion rights, limits to right of speech (e.g. the very recent ruling in
personal data encryption), stem cell research, affirmative action, and so
forth.

~~~
bmj
I would say "as much as ever," but I agree with your basic premise (as a guy
with a philosophy degree).

I'm not sure philosophers are disappearing from the public consciousness--
rather, they are being replaced with pseudo-philosophers. I reckon Richard
Rorty was the last philosopher/public intellectual.

~~~
Jun8
I couldn't agree with your pseudo-philosopher observation. The public does
have a need for consultation on these important questions and more and more
that's being filled by such people.

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scoofy
Philosophy is interested with the very edge of knowledge and learning why and
how we can know about it. Perhaps you forget not so long ago the philosophers
Frege, along with and Russell and Whitehead. These guys were trying to create
a logic that mapped to language better that their traditional logic. This guy
named Wittgenstein came up with this idea called 'truth-tables'. This work
eventually lead some guy named Turing to invent the effing computer. It was
philosophy, now it's a science.

Philosophy is the creation of sciences. Whether it's computer science of the
recent past, or psychology and political science before that, or even physics
if you go back to Galileo's and Decartes' 'natural philosophy'. It's easy to
disparage philosophy in retrospect, because you don't consider the science you
love as being its biproduct.

~~~
bermanoid
_It's easy to disparage philosophy in retrospect, because you don't consider
the science you love as being its biproduct._

But this is exactly the problem with philosophy - all the useful stuff[1]
leaves the field and takes on another label, because all the crap that's been
around forever (you know, all that meandering metaphysical wishy washy
nonsense about the nature of existence that everyone immediately thinks when
they hear the word "philosophy") is pretty much garbage and nobody wants to be
associated with it if they've got something that you can actually use.

Philosophical motivations are fine, and every field needs a "Philosophy Of" to
guide it; quite often those philosophical thoughts are exactly what inspired
the original visionaries to do the real work of studying that field, and
that's great, we need people thinking about stuff like that.

But the pure study of philosophy has too many dark corners where stupidity can
hide out and self-reinforce for me to approve of its current incarnation:
while a small part of it is legitimate work in formal logic, a good part of
the rest is lightly camouflaged religious apologetics, and the remainder is
just inane arguments over definitions which ultimately do little more than
remind us that human language is imprecise and does not lend itself to formal
analysis. In my experience, way too many of the people that are "into
philosophy" focus exclusively on the latter two pieces of it, embracing rigor
only to the extent that it allows for squishy beliefs that can never be proven
wrong.

[1] ...with the notable exception of some parts of mathematical logic, which
for some inexplicable reason seemed to stick around in the philosophy
departments rather than moving on over to math like they probably should have.

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rwj
Even if many people do not need to know more philosophy, they certainly need
more _practice_ in philosophy. Philosophy teaches people to think logically,
to form rational arguments, to carefully define their terms. Thinking clearly
is an important life skill.

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rdouble
I majored in Philosophy. It requires reading a bunch of obtuse and boring
stuff, as well as a couple of logic classes. It turns out if you do the
homework, it makes the LSAT a piece of cake. So there's one practical use
case.

~~~
mcrider
Agreed, as evidenced by my SO who took philosophy and got almost a perfect
score on the LSAT. I didn't go in that direction, but I think majoring in
Philosophy is a great path if you're sure you're going to get a post-graduate
degree (or already have a certifiable skill).

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pygorex
Philosophers are a lot like programmers. The car you drive, the clothes you
wear, the food you eat - all of them are touched in some way by a computer
program - even if you personally are unaware of how these computer programs
design things and route people & things. Philosophy is like this - the most
ardent Bible (or Quran) thumping fundamentalist makes a bevy of philosophical
arguments, even if they do a poor job of it while they are unaware of it.

As with programming, the more esoteric and technical aspects of philosophy can
be difficult for the layman to grasp. No policy maker would dream of de-
funding computer science education because it's obtuse to the general public.
Yet somehow technical difficulty is a knock against funding philosophy
education in the USA....

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pbh
I think the most succinct response to this question I've found comes from the
Starcraft II casting archon, "Tastosis" during one of those filler periods
where nothing is happening in the game:

 _Tasteless:_ I'm a philosophy major, man.

 _Artosis:_ Hmmmm? That's good.

 _Tasteless:_ You major in that, people are like: "What are you going to do
with a philosophy major?" _::outraged mumble::_ I'm like: "I dunno, properly
navigate the world with my mind? Geez!"

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gaius
I have several friends involved with philosophy, as students or lecturers. If
you listen to them talk, there is some interesting stuff there, like formal
logic, but the lion's share is just arguing about semantics and nuances of
translation from the original German. I think of philosophy like chess: it's
an intellectual challenge, with a lot of history, but at the end of the day
it's just a game. It's not _for_ anything.

~~~
rapala
_If you listen to them talk, there is some interesting stuff there, like
formal logic, but the lion's share is just arguing about semantics and nuances
of translation from the original German._

I think that describes what it is to work with a programming language
compiler. And everyone knows that it is of utmost importance to get the
semantics and small nuances just right. Compiler that can detect more of these
ambiguities is often held as the better one.

Caring for these kind of ambiguities in our lives in general might not make
one a better person. But it is _for_ something.

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spenrose
At the risk of coming off as a fanboy, I'll say that pg's essay on philosophy
is my favorite of his writings:

<http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html>

It matches my experience of getting a B.A. from a SLAC quite closely, and I
regularly share it with non-techies.

~~~
Jun8
The essay is quintessential pg: some things that are not his specialty he gets
wrong but clear and full of great insight. It should be required reading.

When pg talks about his naive decision in high school to major in philosophy
he says: "I thought studying philosophy would be a shortcut straight to
wisdom." I believe this is the central fallacy that people have about the
discipline that turns them off quickly once they realize that it's not a royal
path to wisdom but a broad and technical discussion on what qualities such a
path would have.

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cturner

        > Rejecting foundationalism means accepting that we
        > have every right to hold basic beliefs that are not
        > legitimated by philosophical reflection.  
    

No, that's an utter non-sequiter. It certainly does not follow on from a
rejection of foundationalism that you can hold arbitrary basic beliefs.

For example, you may instead set a standard of evidence whereby you expect the
set of your ideas to have an internal consistency, and where you consider the
weight of new evidence against your existing map. Your tree could be
influenced by philosophical reflection.

Of you might consider your belief to consist of parallel hypotheticals. I may
be a brain in a vat, but I'm also open to being a geek tapping on a computer
in a newtonianish universe.

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spodek
I respect philosophy, but am more persuaded by Richard Feynman's perspective,
when asked what he considered a philosophical question.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8aWBcPVPMo>

This NY Times story gets that philosophy isn't that necessary, but then got so
bogged down in philosophical writing it was a chore to get through and I don't
consider it worth my time to have read it.

Socrates said "The unexamined life is not worth living." I've examined my life
a bunch and have benefited from the examination, but the people I know who
seem to enjoy their lives the most haven't examined theirs at all.

I tend to examine mine less now and I think I'm living better. But maybe
that's from figuring things out earlier.

~~~
philwelch
"The unlived life is not worth examining."

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realschool
Philosophy is for the people who are pre-determined to be interested in
philosophy. People who are not pre-determined to be interested in philosophy
will never be able to see value in the act of studying philosophy.

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AznHisoka
There are 2 types of philosophy - the abstract stuff that deals with semantics
and logic. And the more practical type that deals with emotional mastery (such
as Zen, the non-religious aspects of Buddhism, and Stoicism).

This type of philosophy is supposed to relieve suffering. I hate to phrase it
as a negative, but for most people, we turn to philosophy when our lives are
in dire straits, not when we're doing well. In a sense, I guess it's more like
spirituality.

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idoh
I was reading Benjamin Franklin's autobiography and he wrote about philosophy
in a broader sense. The context I remember is that he was hoping that a
philosopher would take on the challenge of figuring out how best to shape and
rig a sailboat, because at the time it was all more of an art than a science.

Point being, up until the 19th century some or most people who would consider
themselves philosophers tended to be more pragmatic/practical in their
pursuits.

~~~
prodigal_erik
Science used to be called <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy>.
Many of those people would not call themselves philosophers today, because the
meaning has shifted.

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xenophanes
Why Philosophy? free iOS app:

<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/why-philosophy/id354900479>

And short pro-thinking/philosophy website presenting an argument/reasons:

<http://curi.us/think/>

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Tycho
There are many philosophies, but only one can be right. Seems to me every self
respecting adult should settle on what philosophy they think is right, and
then live by it, and not waste time going back and fourth about abstract
technicalities in other philosophies.

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ExpiredLink
Philosophy is rational thinking. Just like any rational thinking in any domain
or discipline. Philosophy 'just' concentrates on the most basic concepts, the
irreducible concepts.

------
dreamdu5t
New York Times - What's the use?

