Pharyngula

Posted by: Tom | October 31, 2009 6:12 PM

Even though I was a Philosophy major and graduate student, I completely agree. Philosophers need to stick to thinking about abstract ideas, not scientific, psychological, or linguistic ones. Leave those to the scientists, psychologists, and linguists.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage | October 31, 2009 6:31 PM

I've said this before and various philosophy fans have yelled at me for saying it (however they've never given me any reason to change my mind). The main product of many philosophers is bullshit. Pure, unadulterated, straight from the bovine, feces.

Posted by: Kel, OM | October 31, 2009 6:36 PM

I don't think I could ever be a philosopher.

You know that's going to be quoted by some theist hack the next time you criticise a theist philosopher.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | October 31, 2009 6:47 PM

/waits for philosophiles to come whining

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage | October 31, 2009 6:57 PM

Darwin's hypothesis did not sprang spontaneously from the lab.

Au contraire.* Darwin looked at a massive amount of evidence before he promulgated his theory. Some of this evidence even came from labs.

*That's French for "wrong."

Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | October 31, 2009 7:01 PM

Kel. Agreed. However, if Darwin had to wait for the full evidence for evolution he would have never written anything on the subject. To that extent he was a philosopher and all great scientist are before the get to the lab.

Sounds fair to me - evidence + philosophical contemplation of evidence = good.

However, much philosophy (theistic philosophy in particular) is generated either in spite of the absence of evidence, or - in the case of philosophers like Plantinga and Lane Craig - as a way of distracting people from the fact there is no evidence, in the hope they won't notice.

That's not so good.

Posted by: NewEnglandBob | October 31, 2009 7:11 PM

Michael Young @3:

I watched those lectures of Justice with Michael Sandel and it did NOT change my mind about philosophy. It confirmed it.

I also read "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" by Carl Popper and that certainly did not help.

Daniel Dennett (I have read 4 of his books) is the only philosopher I am comfortable reading and he is not always easy to comprehend.

Posted by: Kitty'sBitch | October 31, 2009 7:28 PM

Michael Young

Thank you very much. This does look interesting.

Posted by: hallucigenia | October 31, 2009 8:26 PM

Bill Wimasatt's style of philosophy can be very tough going--PZ's not the first person to feel lost after one of his talks. On the other hand, I heard similar comments from very smart people after Eric Lander's talk on genomics. It's too bad when people don't try to make their subject accessible to a general audience at non-specialist conferences like this.

That said, it baffles me that people reason that since some disciplines (e.g. philosophy) are difficult and technical they are therefore 'bullshit.' Just because YOU can't understand it doesn't mean it's meaningless. 'Tis, you seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to philosophy across the boards that must owe to a painful experience as a youngster. Eliott Sober's talk this morning was a model of clarity and probity--I'm sorry that PZ wasn't able to attend that one.

Posted by: Michael | October 31, 2009 8:31 PM

There is a collection of philosophy podcasts here: http://philosophybites.com/

Pharyngulites might appreciate some of these, such as Walter Sinnott-Armstrong on Morality Without God and Barry C. Smith on Neuroscience.

On the other hand you all probably won't like such offerings as Marilyn McCord Adams on Evil. ("The Problem of Evil is usually presented as a problem for believers. How could a good and all-powerful tolerate such evil in the world? In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast Marilyn Adams turns this around, arguing that it is a problem for optimistic non-believers.")

Posted by: Kel, OM | October 31, 2009 8:37 PM

There is a collection of philosophy podcasts here: http://philosophybites.com/

That's one of my favourite podcasts to listen to, I also liked Nigel Warburton "Philosophy: the classics" series.

On the other hand you all probably won't like such offerings as Marilyn McCord Adams on Evil.

I brought this one up on here previously, and elsewhere too. The argument was so absurd that I tell people it in absolute disbelief that a professional philosopher could come up with such garbage.

Posted by: Some Philosopher | October 31, 2009 9:49 PM

Whine, whine...
Just to keep the flame afire. Can anyone give a specific thing about philosophy, in general, that makes it so bad?
Usually what I read here is: "I listened to some philosophy I thought was bullshit, so it must be bullshit, and therefore all philosophy is bullshit." If I've misinterpreted the above comments please correct me. Is this meant to be an argument, or just and expression of disgust?

Posted by: Benjamin Nelson | October 31, 2009 10:14 PM

Er -- Tis, Rorty isn't exactly the representative of our field.

On the other points. I do have a problem with professional scholar of philosophy who calls themselves a "philosopher". It seems presumptuous. Save that title for the interesting people: the Frankfurts, the Rawlses, the Mills and Russells and Quines and Davidsons.

Which is all just to say that the discipline in the contemporary academy is not set up in a very sensible way. Cream rises to the top; so does shit. But whattayagonnado?

Posted by: RBH | October 31, 2009 10:33 PM

As a side note, Wimsatt was Paul Nelson's Ph.D. advisor.

Posted by: SteveL | October 31, 2009 11:05 PM

#14 and others:

Try Bertrand Russell. Very readable, unless he's writing math.

Posted by: Benjamin Nelson | October 31, 2009 11:33 PM

Tis, no, it's a question of consensus. Rorty is widely read but not well regarded. And if you're suspicious of this random internet opinion, then find an analytic philosophy department, knock on a random door, and ask.

Posted by: cognitive animal | November 1, 2009 12:10 AM

'Tis, your sophomoric misattribution of a fallacy in response to Benjamin Nelson is too stupid for words.

Wow, what a load of commentators suffering from coprolalia, yet not knowing, er, shit about philosophy -- apart from knowing a few religious apologists whom nobody talks about in core analytic philosophy, and maybe a couple of mush-brained celebrities that get read in the literature departments.

Posted by: MikeB | November 1, 2009 12:26 AM

Man, 'Tis - You've obviously got a very inflated opinion of your ability to differentiate between stuff you're just too narrow-minded or uneducated to comprehend and bullshit.

Suffice it to say you're talking out of your arse - there's a lot of philosophers as interesting and as brilliant as Dennett (P.S. Churchland, P.M. Churchland, K. Sterelny, W. Bechtel, J. Kim, A. Melnyk, F. Dretske, S. Shoemaker, C. Craver, D. Papineau, S. Hurley, J. Bickle, B. Baars, J. Woodward, S. Psillios, A. Rosenberg, S. Okasha, P. Carruthers, A. Clark, P. Kitcher, T. Maudlin, T. Metzinger, A. Noe, J. Prinz, O. Flanagan, Z. Pylyshyn, W. Salmon, L. Sklar, E. Wilson, E. Sober and A. Chakravartty to name just some contemporary ones)

There's legitimate, interesting and necessary philosophy that doesn't and doesn't have to concern itself with a lot of science - they tackle the incredibly complex conceptual issues. These are the guys that make it possible to even get a conceptual scheme to approach a certain field of inquiry in a scientific way. This is the way it has been in the past - with all sciences. Science owes incredibly much to philosophy. And this is still the way things are going - The cognitive sciences e.g. took some conceptual schemes from philosophy. Now, in the light of new problems, these are being re-evaluated, and there's a highly fruitful cooperation between cognitive (neuro-)scientists and philosophers. The same is true for evolutionary theory. The concepts of fitness, of multiple inheritance systems, the conceptual foundation of theories of cultural evolution, the concept of information in evolution - all these issues and many more are debated by philosophers, biologists, anthropologists etc in the same journals, and again - there's a lot of fruitful cooperation.

But of course, you're too dogmatic, and seem to have your head stuck too far up your arse to be able to appreciate that.

But here's an idea - re-think your preconceptions, make an effort to understand, and if you still don't comprehend - ask people to explain it who know something about it. But judging from your comments, that seems far beyond your capabilities.

Thankfully, many scientists recognize the value of philosophy, of collaborating with philosophers and of thinking about philosophical issues. And, thankfully, by far most scientists are too un-dogmatic to dismiss philosophy as you (and others on here) do.

But, if you should ever be able to overcome your dogmatism and actually try to engage some philosophical work open minded - try "Thought in a hostile world" by Kim Sterelny, or "Connectionism and the Mind, 2nd edition" by William Bechtel and Adele Abrahamson, or try some papers by Paul Churchland, like "Chimerical Colors", or "Neurosemantics".

cognitive animal is absolutely right - calling that a 'no true scotsman fallacy' is stupid beyond words. That one really outs you as the know-nothing knee-jerk type.
Yes, his post was hyperbolic concerning the number of commentators he was referring to, but concerning 'Tis (and a few others), he was spot on.

____________________________________
On a related issue, I've noticed that some people tend to ask for empirical evidence on topics where there cannot be empirical evidence, because the topic is closely related to something where empirical evidence is of prime importance. I'm not saying that was the case here, but it sounds like it might have been, although from what 'a philosopher' says it doesn't seem likely.

Posted by: John Morales | November 1, 2009 12:43 AM

MikeB, cognitive animal:

cognitive animal is absolutely right - calling that a 'no true scotsman fallacy' is stupid beyond words.

Hm. Himself responded to this: Er -- Tis, Rorty isn't exactly the representative of our field.

Do either you or animal care to explain why it's "stupid beyond words", or did you mean that literally and therefore cannot explain in words? ;)

Posted by: hallucigenia | November 1, 2009 12:49 AM

Be warned: last time this argument broke out, 'Tis said a bunch of inflammatory and apparently ignorant things, and the next day claimed to have been kidding in order to wind up other commenters. I guess he must be doing that again, because he's recycling the same arguments he used last time. If you mention any philosophers by name as examples of clear, valuable thinking, he'll accuse you of name-dropping. Apparently, he wants us to explain right here and now the entire content of modern analytic philosophy before he'll acknowledge any value in the subject.

Again, that's an old creationist debating tactic, but he seems not to realise or care.

It's a moot point, though, because since he rejects philosophy he will soon be recycling his computer, and we won't have to listen to him any more.

Posted by: Rorschach | November 1, 2009 12:58 AM

Interesting how the "philosophers" here claim that the ones 'Tis mentioned as being sophists and reality-removed bullshitters are not in fact "representatives of our field", or "well read but not well regarded" .

I fail to see how pointing this out is "stupid beyond words".
Would seem stupid beyond words in fact not to note it !

Posted by: cognitive animal | November 1, 2009 1:07 AM

MikeB, John Morales:

You're right that my generalization about "loads of commentators" being coprolalic was wrong, sorry about that. Seeing this Tis ignoramus smear the word "shit" all over the place (which he did abundantly, meeting scarce protest) got me confused on that point for sure.

I entirely stand by the other remarks that I made. And no, John, I'm not here to explain that (oh my goodness, are you serious?!). Tis got more than enough hints from commentators already, we're not here to give him an introductory course on whatever basics he's too lazy to read up on! Especially since I'm posting from Europe and I need to get to bed now!

Posted by: MikeB | November 1, 2009 1:13 AM

@John Morales

it was 'stupid beyond words' because an you need far more to justify an accusation of having committed the no-true-scotsman fallacy than just a statement that a certain mentioned person is not representative. Rorty indeed has a view that no philosopher I've ever had contact with adhered to.

@Wowbagger,

what makes you think I meant the existence of god/s? No, when you're proposing the existence of a being, that's not a conceptual issue, though there may be a lot of connected conceptual issues.

The most a theist could theoretically accomplish on a purely conceptual level with regard to the existence of a deity is show that it follows in a strict logical way from other things we already assume (such as the laws of logic, or premises with empirical and/or conceptual content), and that we thus have to assume its existence if we want to stick to the premises. But Plantinga's modal-logical 'proof' was perhaps the closest theists ever got to that. And, although interesting from a modal-logical point of view, it failed for various reasons.

No, what I meant was conceptual issues. To give some examples from a field that you might be more familiar with - take the question of what we ought to treat as part of a phenotype. That's a conceptual issue, not an empirical one. Or take the question of how we ought to define fitness in various contexts. Or, alternatively, take the issue of how we should use terms like 'complexity' and 'information' in the field of biology. These are examples of conceptual issues where there cannot be evidence to decide the question one way or the other. Of course, concerning these specific questions, it would be hard to develop a conceptual scheme without knowledge of the facts of the field - which is why philosophers of biology (I've listed some really good ones above) tend to be very knowledgeable about the relevant facts in the field.

Posted by: Rorschach | November 1, 2009 1:16 AM

Rorty indeed has a view that no philosopher I've ever had contact with adhered to.

There goes another irony meter !

Posted by: MikeB | November 1, 2009 1:26 AM

P.S.: Neither Rorty's position, nor his style of argument (especially in his recent period) are characteristic of philosophy as a whole, which is, btw, an incredibly diverse field.

I've listed several brilliant philosophers - none of them share Rorty's style of argument or position. Many of them work in fields closely related to a specific science (mostly evolutionary biology, the cognitive sciences and neuroscience) and are extremely well educated in those fields.

I've read a lot of philosophers on the topics I am currently working on (i.e. Philosophy of Biology and Philosophy of the cognitive (neuro)sciences/Philosophy of Mind).

None of them produce bullshit, though many of them I don't agree with. All of them are quite good at analyzing and constructing coherent arguments...

I really don't see what would be so ironic about my statement...(?)

Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | November 1, 2009 1:52 AM

MikeB wrote:

what makes you think I meant the existence of god/s?

I was just checking - an argument along those lines (abstract concepts exist and there's no 'empirical evidence' for them) is one we've seen appear in the posts of those who then go on to demand that the assertion that their god exists should be accepted on the same principle.

But Plantinga's modal-logical 'proof' was perhaps the closest theists ever got to that. And, although interesting from a modal-logical point of view, it failed for various reasons.

Agreed. Clever and thought-provoking, yes - but still a house built on thin air.

No, what I meant was conceptual issues. To give some examples from a field that you might be more familiar with - take the question of what we ought to treat as part of a phenotype. That's a conceptual issue, not an empirical one.

And I'm fine with that, mostly because it's philosophy applied to something that we don't need to make unsupported assertions about: i.e. organisms exist and can be observed. When philosophers try to argue for the existence of a god, on the other hand, they aren't starting with anything as acceptable.

Posted by: Diane G. | November 1, 2009 1:59 AM

# 10 Posted by: 'Tis Himself

I've said this before and various philosophy fans have yelled at me for saying it (however they've never given me any reason to change my mind). The main product of many philosophers is bullshit. Pure, unadulterated, straight from the bovine, feces.

^ What he said. Also, what he said in # 25.

#11 Posted by: mod
Dennet argues that philosophers try and work out what the right questions are, and scientists try and figure out the answers.

Don't you think that sound just a little arrogant?

#18 Posted by: hallucigenia
That said, it baffles me that people reason that since some disciplines (e.g. philosophy) are difficult and technical they are therefore 'bullshit.' Just because YOU can't understand it doesn't mean it's meaningless.

Again--just a little arrogant? Consider that scientists might just be being polite by saying they don't understand it. They're really pretty good at understanding that which they determine is worth spending the time on. Sokal showed that understanding doesn't make any difference anyway--as long as you learn the terms & how to sling them around.

#13 Posted by: SirBedevere
Lately I've been reading "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" by Daniel Dennett (a philosopher). I don't question the accolades it's received but, man, it's a slog. I don't think I'm going to make it all the way through...

Agreed. Even though I agree with Dennett over what he disagrees with Dawkins about, I'd much rather read the latter. When I find myself sailing through Dennett, it's usually when he's thrown in a concrete biological example, or at least some social science data.

#19 Posted by: wazza
...a lot of philosophers treat any reference to the real world as something the cat dragged in, because human logic is so much more reliable.

That's supposed to be a joke, right? Aren't these the same folks who proved you could boil a frog without it noticing?

#24 Posted by: Some Philosopher | October 31, 2009 9:49 PM
Can anyone give a specific thing about philosophy, in general, that makes it so bad?

It's simply opinion, and its professional practicioners tend to be pompous posturers. Philosophizing is a natural outgrowth of an educated, intelligent mind, and the most affecting philosophy I've heard over the years has come from scientists, for many of whom it's a natural outgrowth of the phenomena they study. And they just tend to have a little more basis for their opinions; but at the same time, they don't pretend that it's anything more than opinion; they don't need to say "look at me, I'm philosophizing."
They may say, "this is what I think," and it often carries a lot of weight, depending on the source, but they seldom insist that they're convinced they have the "truth," much less imply "and this is what you should think, too."

Posted by: Marcus Ranum | November 1, 2009 2:06 AM

It seems to be a bit of an overstatement to say that "philosophy is bullshit" when logic, political "science", the scientific method, and much of what we call "reason" is based on ancient Greek philosophy. Where else do you think science gets its distaste for contradiction? Is the desire to build a world-view that is free of obvious paradox mere "philosophical bullshit" or is it science?

There certainly are philosophers who lean a bit heavily on the excrement dump lever but I think that has less to do with the field's being "bullshit" and more a side-effect of the fact that the ancient Greeks mined it pretty hard, and deeply, pretty early. And, of course, religion injected its own double shovel-full of bovine biomass in the form of endless attempts of one form of christianity to "prove" it was right and the others wrong. (Ironically, the ancient Greeks pretty effectively dispatched the gods, philosophically; the christians never did manage to refute Epicurus and Sextus Empiricus - leaving a logical hole in their flank a mile wide for enlightenment thinkers to drive through) there's a lot of crap in philosophy thanks to religion, only being outdone through herculean efforts by the post-modernists.

If you enjoy practicing inductive reasoning, you can probably thank an ancient Greek philosopher. If you're a skeptic, ditto. Etc. Bullshit, indeed.

Posted by: buche | November 1, 2009 2:50 AM

@56 - Couldn't agree more.

I had a fling with semiotics a few years back and still have a headache from it. I was tempted to dismiss it all as BS.

But then I remember that it's philo that got me interested in science, via logic. Hume, Russell, Wittengstein. And Camus was a big step for me towards atheism.

Posted by: Phro | November 1, 2009 4:49 AM

After all the player hatin' on religious studies, I suppose it's not surprising to see the same attitude towards philosophy. Given the weird diversity that I understand the field to be, it doesn't seem that surprising that some think it's all bullshit. I still feel that way about plato and most Christian philosophers. But they have (and continue to) greatly affect the way we view the world. Nietzsche is one great (though also psychotic example). Or the cultural relativists who I find as idiotic as they are brilliant. Do philosophers sometimes need a bit more evidence? Yes, I think maybe so. (though I hope no one is criticizing an ancient for a lack of evidence.)

that said I think there are some subjects better suited to philosophy than others. Like literature or cultural studies. So: dealing with how we think or construct our identities. I'm not big on postmodernism, but, in that context, I think it can be useful. Others have given examples of scientific applications of philosophy, I mention things to suggest other applications to show why it's not all just bullshit.

Typing on a cellphone is exhausting, so I'll provide further examples later, if necessary.

Posted by: depressed observer | November 1, 2009 7:32 AM

The comments about philosophy in this thread are hilariously idiotic.

Does anyone here have any experience in philosophy besides picking their nose in philosophy 101? Here, it seems to me, is the pattern of reasoning in the critics' minds:

1. PZ didn't like a talk given by a philosopher.
2. In that case, I guess it's cool to say that philosophy sucks!!
3. Therefore philosophy sucks.

Posted by: John Morales | November 1, 2009 8:19 AM

depressed, I take it you've not read the numerous previous threads where the merits of philosophy have been vigorously discussed.

Given your putative inference from 1 to 2, I'm not surprised Feynmaniac's comment @8 didn't provide you with a clue.

As to your question, you might note at least one commenter has already answered it. Rhetorical questions fail rather spectacularly when they've been answered before they've been asked...

PS You might wish to work on your snark because, as written, you've implied you consider picking one's nose constitutes "experience in philosophy".

--

Roman, welcome to the "fap circle".

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | November 1, 2009 9:17 AM

"Philosophy is bullshit"

Yep, 'Tis got it right.

Do I have free will? Do I know anything at all? Could the natural world contain moral properties like rightness and wrongness? Are the direct objects of perception mind-independent?

A bunch of inane questions that can only be answered through mental masturbations. Some of us are too busy doing real work to worry about such crap. The world exists, and we deal with it. Without needing hundreds of pages of incomprehensible prose to supposedly tell us, in what really comes down to a page or two.

Posted by: Benjamin Nelson | November 1, 2009 10:20 AM

I made two points in my reply to Tis. The first point has attracted attention, but not the second.

The first was that Rorty is unusual as an analytic philosopher. Unlike a "True Scotsman" claim, it can be empirically confirmed or disconfirmed. If you find wide consensus among analytic philosophers that Rorty was super amazing and totally right, then that would make my claim wrong, and I would have to apologize for saying wrong things over the internet.

But my second point was to agree that there are severe problems with the profession. As I put it: "The cream rises to the top; so does shit". Ironically though, if I had been pressed on this, I would have had to give a "True Scotsman" style of argument.

Posted by: BlueMonday | November 1, 2009 10:26 AM

'Tis, I love you. Thank you. Nerd, you as well. I'm going to save this for when I need a vicarious anti-philosophy boost. I can't personally bring myself to engage most of the time. I applaud your efforts.

Posted by: costerad | November 1, 2009 11:18 AM

I had Wimsatt as a prof in my last quarter of college, for a course titled "Cultural and Biological Evolution."

I felt the same way in every lecture as PZ did in this one. Wimsatt has a ton of interesting stuff to say, but it's awfully damn hard to follow.

Posted by: A. Noyd | November 1, 2009 12:01 PM

What standards are we who don't specialize in philosophy supposed to use to sift out the pure-nonsense talkers? I mean, it's nice of you philosophy-lover types to reject post-modernism because it's absolute crap, but it still holds sway in the popular mind, if only in a bastardized form. So really, it's not all that surprising that people react to philosophy with disgust when so little of the "good" stuff is popularized and hardly any philosopher can speak plainly enough that even folks highly educated in other disciplines can make heads or tails of what's being said. I mean, science has this problem of being inaccessible, but philosophy's got it even worse. If philosophy is supposed to be useful, it is not on all the rest of us to learn the pecularities of each philosopher.

For the record, I think philosophy is useful and interesting. But I also had my mind poisoned for several years by post-modernist nonsense. So I can really sympathize with people who despise philosophy for being so far removed from reality, both in the sense that much of it is sophistry based on nothing, and also in the sense that it doesn't get translated for non-specialists. (Nor does it police its mistakes very well.)

Posted by: Mr T | November 1, 2009 1:11 PM

Eric Thompson, #75:
Just to be clear, I'm not arguing "all philosophy is bullshit", or anything like that. I'm an artist (worse yet, to be specific, a composer), and I certainly appreciate much that philosophers have contributed throughout history and in various fields. For my part, I don't think art would be as interesting without aesthetic philosophy.
However, I'll ask in return: How do we know that the question, "What is the nature of logical consequence?", is well-formed? I realize it wouldn't be an easy question to answer, but your defense consisted mainly of other related questions, which may or may not also be well-formed. You haven't demonstrated anything about the status of the original question, by itself, as it was posed by depressed observer.

Posted by: Tom | November 1, 2009 1:44 PM

Is Michael Behe representative of biochemistry? Then why should Richard Rorty be representative of philosophy?

And if philosophy is bullshit because of people like Rorty, then does this mean 'Tis's field of economics is also bullshit, because of the existence of the Chicago and Austrian schools?

Of course, economics is not bullshit, neither is biochemistry, and neither is philosophy. Just be careful in your glass house.

Posted by: depressed observer | November 1, 2009 1:47 PM

To Eric Thompson:

It is, indeed, true that the number of philosophical questions which have received conclusive or widely-accepted answers is significantly smaller than the number of questions in other disciplines about which there is consensus. In my view, that is because philosophical questions are just very hard and very abstract.

But progress has certainly been made in the last 50 years. Here are five areas (there are many more):

(i) 50 years ago, most philosophers (and psychologists) accepted the so-called "sense-datum" theory of perception. It is not widely recognized that this theory is unacceptable. Significantly more viable alternatives, including "intentionalism" and "disjunctivism", have been explored. For an account of this debate which is accessible to the beginner, see an article by Tim Crane: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/

(ii) 50 years ago, many philosophers accepted a "descriptivist" theory of the semantics for proper names. The theory states, roughly, that the semantic content of a proper name like "George Bush" is a definite description of the form "The F" (e.g., "the nth president of the USA"). Saul Kripke, one of the most important philosophers still alive, demolished this theory in his book "Naming and Necessity". In turn, more plausible accounts of semantics for proper names have been developed by contemporary philosophers; see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/names/

(iii) In the 1980s, a number of philosophers (especially Ruth Millikan) began to develop "naturalistic theories of mental representation". The basic idea behind these theories is to provide an account of mental representation (to which cognitive scientists, amongst others, routinely appeal) in terms of better understood notions, like causal covariation. Naturalistic theories of mental representation are still very controversial, but they have shown how semantic properties may have a genuine place in the natural world. See: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-representation/

Posted by: Benj Hellie | November 1, 2009 1:59 PM

What we philosophers are in the business of doing is *trying to figure out how to get started thinking successfully about things that nobody is any good at thinking about*.

When we come up with an awesome approach, hordes of people come rushing in to exploit it. We call those people "scientists".

Two comments:

(1) Since philosophical activity largely starts from scratch, the failure rate is liable to be extremely high.

(2) Science has a high success rate in part because it does not start from scratch, but is rather based in part in those rare successes in philosophical activity.

In light of this differential success rate, it is not surprising that many people therefore regard our product as "bullshit", and think that scientists are way awesomer and kewler than we are.

Those people should ask themselves, however, where the foundational ideas and models at the heart of their sciences came from. Perhaps there is a model resembling the old "spontaneous generation" theory of pestilence in the background: take a trillion+ dollars of funding from government and corporate sources, put it in a big pile near a bunch of stately buildings surrounding a green quad ... and the inevitable result is ... science!!

Posted by: Eric Thomson | November 1, 2009 2:33 PM

Mr T: I can't make it any more clear why the question of the nature of logical consequence is a well-formed question. I'm not sure what you are confused about in what I wrote. It should be discussed in any introductory logic book/course.

Depressed observer: Of course all of those are contentious. It should be easy to understand why scientists scoff.

I would pick Putam's Twin Earth as the most important contribution in the past 50 years, but of course the consequences of the thought experiment are contentious. Questions, not answers, as usual. I'm being a bit harsh, as obviously with the questions comes the exploration of possible answer space, typically limited to those possibilities that can be expressed in natural language or sometimes formal logic (as opposed to computer simulations to explore possibilities, and mathematics such as differential equations, stats, linear algebra which provides the formal language of choice for scientists).

As I said earlier, philosophy is at a disadvantage because once a question starts to get some empirical footing, it typically becomes absorbed by the specialists. E.g., psychology. Then the philosophers are left without much to do.

For instance, we don't need philosophical theories of mental representation because neuroscience is revealing how brains represent the world. The so-called semantics of proper names will be absorbed by linguistics (I say so-called because philosophers' accounts of 'meaning' are typically just stories about reference, yet another case of philosophers fetishizing weird narrow topics, and counting as progress the rejection of silly little theories such as sense-datum theories erected by earlier philosophers so that there is an illusion of progress).

That said, I'm not saying all philosophy is BS. Their questions are useful, especially when annoying, and in rare cases their natural language explorations of possibility space are good balm for the mind (I would put the Churchlands, Putnam, Sellars, and perhaps Brandom in this camp). Not because they have established any new truths, but because of the cool possibility spaces they have laid out for us.

I was a philosophy grad student, left with my Masters to enter neuroscienced. Hence, I understand fairly well the insecurity of philosophy as a discipline without any subject matter. I think it sort of has to be that way for philosophy to continue. And because of that, it will continue to be annoying to scientists. Philosophers shouldn't want it any other way.

Posted by: Eric Thomson | November 1, 2009 2:40 PM

Benj Hellie has an interesting take:

What we philosophers are in the business of doing is *trying to figure out how to get started thinking successfully about things that nobody is any good at thinking about*.

Perhaps you can give us a philosophy success story from the past 50 years. What topic have philosophers gotten us started thinking about well, that others couldn't think about well?

Posted by: Physicalist | November 1, 2009 3:15 PM

Perhaps you can give us a philosophy success story from the past 50 years. What topic have philosophers gotten us started thinking about well, that others couldn't think about well?

I'll submit research on quantum entanglement/computing/information as one such story.

And, of course, the more relevant point -- made by Prof. Hellie and others -- is that if you go back far enough in the history of any scientific discipline you're going to find that it grew out of a rich tradition of philosophical work.

Posted by: semiprometheus | November 1, 2009 4:30 PM

I also had an undergrad class in which Wimsatt was one of the professors. I was so grateful to the other lecturers for indirectly rephrasing what Wimsatt was talking about.

Posted by: Physicalist | November 1, 2009 5:28 PM

@ Eric Thomson:

Prof. Hellie's suggestion was that philosophers are "trying to figure out how to get started thinking successfully about things that nobody is any good at thinking about" (emphasis added); no one has claimed that philosophers run experiments to empirically test well-developed models.

You asked for a topic, in the past 50 years, that "philosophers [have] gotten us started thinking about well, that others couldn't think about well?"

Though much of 20th century, physicists didn't have the tools to think about quantum entanglement, in part because they bought into a naive operationalism that allowed them to avoid the difficult conceptual questions at the heart of quantum mechanics. Some physicists, like Bohr and Einstein (who themselves were quite well-versed in philosophy) did address some of these questions, but for the most part physicists viewed discussions of these topics as foolish, and maybe even reprehensible.

Philosophers, however, continued to pursue interpretive questions in quantum theory, and at the same time were demonstrating that operationalism is deeply flawed as an account of meaning.

When John Bell (a physicist) derived his famous theorem that showed the impossibility of local hidden variable theories, physicists for the most part could care less. Philosophers, on the other hand, recognized the foundational importance of the issues of hidden variables, nonlocality, and entanglement, and worked to flesh out the implications of his theorem, and to make possible an empirical test of its claim.

You asked for a name. I give you Abner Shimony, a philosopher who also has a PhD in physics. I don't think it's overstating the case to say that his work is largely (though obviously not exclusively) responsible for the development of quantum information theory.

Of course, there's a blending of physics and philosophy throughout all of this, but that too was part of Hellie's point: science only gets cleanly differentiated from philosophy when it's got a clear successful empirical research program going. Until that corner is turned, the questions are often going to be pursued by folks called philosophers, but this makes the questions no less interesting or legitimate.

Posted by: Mr T | November 1, 2009 5:36 PM

Eric Thompson:
I think I've figured out the nature of our misunderstanding:

I never said there had to be a unique answer, that doesn't mean the question is unclear. . . . Clearly the questions posed by confused_observer are reasonable questions, and that was my point, that the question of logical consequence is not jibberish, as you suggested above.

I do not think the concept of logical consequence is jibberish, and I apologize if somehow I gave that impression. What I meant by an "ill-formed question" doesn't seem to be what you meant. As I understand it in the context of mathematics, such questions are known to have a unique answer or set of answers, which can be shown to exist, even if the answer is currently unknown. It could simply be that the question as stated simply has no solution. The concept of "logical consequence" itself doesn't need to be jibberish in order for us to ask the wrong questions about it.

It was a well-posed question to ask, "is there a largest prime number?". Even though there is no such thing, there was still a solution. We can define numerical properties like "largest" and "prime" in such a way that both have a consistent meaning. Euclid could prove it without a full understanding of the primes' properties, but he had to ask a very specific question that was solvable.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage | November 1, 2009 5:47 PM

First of all, I'd like to remind those people calling me an ignoramus about philosophy and all the great stuff it's done over the years that I actually said, way back in #25:

There are some philosophers who have something interesting or even, possibly, with a good wind and going downhill, something useful to say. [Emphasis in original]

So for all you philosophical types whining about my description of all of philosophy as bullshit, your reading comprehension is poor, because I didn't say that.

I do recognize that Dennett has some useful things to say about science and particularly about biology. The Churchlands do interesting work in neuroscience. And I'm sure there are other philosophers who manage to improve the philosophical signal to noise ratio.

I do note that the two examples I gave of philosophers spouting bullshit were dismissed as "Rorty is widely read but not well regarded." and "I do have a problem with professional scholar of philosophy who calls themselves a "philosopher"." In other words, the examples aren't real philosophers, even though both of them are (or in the case of Rorty, were) PhD philosophers and professors of philosophy.

Nobody responded to A. Noyd's #74:

So really, it's not all that surprising that people react to philosophy with disgust when so little of the "good" stuff is popularized and hardly any philosopher can speak plainly enough that even folks highly educated in other disciplines can make heads or tails of what's being said. I mean, science has this problem of being inaccessible, but philosophy's got it even worse. If philosophy is supposed to be useful, it is not on all the rest of us to learn the pecularities of each philosopher.

I have a graduate degree in a liberal art. I consider myself to be well read. I don't think I'm too particularly stupid. I also recognize that I'm not familiar with philosophical jargon, so I probably miss many of the nuances of philosophical discussion.

Much of my disgust with present day philosophy is due to post-modernism (PM). It has a fascination with authoritarianism, particularly fascism. It loves obsurantism, Jacques Derrida is a prime example (see John Searle's comments about Derrida). But PM's worst attribute is that it appears to me to be little more that sophistry, mental masturbation, or just plain bullshit.

Posted by: Physicalist | November 1, 2009 6:00 PM

. . . that scientists use.

(Cut and paste fail.)

Posted by: Tom | November 1, 2009 7:18 PM

'Tis, hard to reconcile #96 with:

philosophers are professional bullshitters

You then followed that by saying that "some" philosophers are good.

It only takes a handful of philosophers to satisfy the comment "There are some philosophers who have something interesting or even, possibly, with a good wind and going downhill, something useful to say". If 4% of philosophers have something "interesting" or "useful" to say, then that would satisfy the criteria "some philosophers". But that would leave 96% of philosophers who are "professional bullshitters".

So you saying that:

There are some philosophers who have something interesting or even, possibly, with a good wind and going downhill, something useful to say.

is actually irrelevant.

Posted by: Eric Thomson | November 1, 2009 8:05 PM

Someone said:

the reason neuroscience is interesting is because of its psychological impacts, so without them you have no explanandum!

Wow. Do I need to explain why that is ridiculous? Does that mean all biology that is not relevant for psychology is uninteresting? I like learning about DNA, for instance, or photosynthesis. It isn't a requirement that neuroscientists need to have psychological phenomena as an explanandum.

To claim linguistics, game theory, etc for philosophers is a stretch at best. However, I can see where this is going and I don't want to push this too hard though as such arguments about who belongs to what discipline are kind of silly.

Obviously there are some exceptions to my claim that philosophers don't know the relevant math that scientists use. But as a rule philosophers are typically just trained in formal logic, often very technical and impressive stuff like Godel and Tarski and all that. Great work, not helpful in the sciences.

That said, of course some philosophers of QM realize they need to absorb the methods (in particular mathematics) that the physicists use, that this will make them better philosophers of physics. Shimoney was a great example of such a researcher: I was always been a fan of his, and of course he was exceptional. This is exceptional philosophy. I wonder what the physics community would say is the most helpful contribution from a philosopher of physics?

To make a real contribution you have to absorb the methods already in use in those disciplines. I know in neuroscience there is basically no help from philosophers as they (with a few exceptions) don't know the right math, and don't know how to do experiments, among other defects. Perhaps in philosophy of physics things are different.

I think the work of Clark Glymour may actually be helpful in some branches of neuroscience.

I know this is a sore spot with philosophers, and I have been rather glib, but overall they serve their role as question-incubators and natural language question-askers very well. And once the scientists tell them how the world works, they get really good at this, and even analyzing the terms used by the scientists (e.g., there is some very interesting philosophy of space, time, quantum mechanics, because the science is very well established---the philosophy of consciousness and such is pretty much like pre-Einsteinian philosophy that will likely look silly once the science has progressed, i.e., once the biology actually has something substantive to say about consciousness).

Posted by: Benj Hellie | November 1, 2009 8:56 PM

"Someone" back again ...

@EThompson -- whoops, forgot to type "distinctively" after the first "is" in the bit you pulled from recent post. By comparison with, say, the intestine. Definitely want to give credit to neuroscientists for all sorts of lovely data collection and little neo-phrenological maps, that stuff is fascinatingly entertaining, like bug legs and tree sap. Still, important to admit that you got into the field because you were interested in explaining consciousness. I imagine it's a sore spot in your community that you really have no grip on how your methods are going to be at all useful here.

Might want to reread my post for examples of math used in natural and social sci that goes beyond alg and analysis, bits of math which philos invented (might also add recursion theory ...).

Too bad you think philos weren't in on the ground floor in developing natural language semantics -- might want to read up on the history of the discipline there.

Don't really care whether the label "question incubating" or "trying to show how to think about things no one really knows how to think about, including neuroscientists" is applied. Seems to amount to the same thing.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | November 1, 2009 9:39 PM

This, to me, is a useful application of philosophical thinking.

If you consider dog a philosophical concept, yes. But the dog of the bible is real entity who interacts with the world. Only hysical evidence, will prove the existence of such of dog. And there is no physical evidence.

Posted by: Autumn | November 2, 2009 12:31 AM

At the risk of alienating everybody, I would like to offer the opinion (sure to anger the science-siders) that science is a philosophy, but that it is also the only one that has been shown to increase our knowledge of the universe.
In other words, philosophy is kind of done, we found the right one: science. It works. We learn. Other methods of philisophical inquiry are very interesting and useful methods of determining how to precisely define a problem and its terminology in order to prove that a statement is true or false.
Only my two cents, and I admit that I am not a scholar.

I also may only be saying this to inflame other commenters (kidding!).

Posted by: Dave2 | November 2, 2009 4:08 AM

'Tis, you wrote: "It's just that I can recognize bullshit when it's presented and philosophers are professional bullshitters."

Admittedly, that sentence does not literally assert that all philosophers are professional bullshitters, but it certainly communicates that proposition as a matter of fairly obvious pragmatic implicature. It's like saying "black people are criminals" and acting shocked when people pick up the obvious implicature.

Everyone:

* Where did you get the impression that philosophy has anything to do with postmodernism? That shit stays in literature departments.

* Anytime you argue that a certain philosophical question is a pseudo-question that cannot be answered or is not worth considering or is not well-formed (etc.), guess what? You're defending a philosophical position, one that's been ably defended by countless philosophers. You can't criticize philosophy without doing philosophy, sorry.

Posted by: Knockgoats | November 2, 2009 5:47 AM

This one's particularly for 'Tis Himself:

"Practical men Scientists, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual philosophical influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist epistemologist." - John Maynard Keynes, adapted.

These days, the defunct epistemologist is, almost invariably, Popper. Note for example the frequent repetition here of the absurd mantra that "Science never proves, only disproves".

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 2, 2009 6:37 AM

Note for example the frequent repetition here of the absurd mantra that "Science never proves, only disproves".

Counterintuitive, yes, but absurd?

Yes, science cannot disprove to the level that we can't disprove the idea that something supernatural messes with our minds and makes us believe that mathematical proofs are proofs when they're actually all wrong. Fine. Solipsism can't be disproved either, and if I'm the solipsist, science is just as pointless an exercise as postmodernism anyway (...though, frankly, it's still more fun!). But within methodological naturalism, it can disprove: if a fact (as defined here) contradicts an idea, the idea is wrong by the standards of methodological naturalism. :-| (And by "wrong" I mean "not 1000 permil correct".)

In contrast, science cannot prove even within methodological naturalism. Suppose we discover the truth. How can we find out that what we've found is indeed the truth? By comparing it to the truth, which we don't have?

In principle, science could prove by Sherlock-Holmes-style elimination, but how do we prove we've thought about all possibilities? And how do we eliminate the untestable ones?

I feel tempted to write credo quia absurdum. But that would be dishonest. On several levels even. B-)

Posted by: nodzou | November 2, 2009 8:31 AM

Hi folks,

So i am a little late in joining in on this one - and i have posted this basic idea in other threads here with little (that is, no) response, but to try again:

Philosophy has a point, however badly individual philosophers have mangled it over these many centuries. It is the internal critique of our mental maps - checking for consistency of signage, for readability, for functionality as a map.

Science has a point, however badly individual scientists have mangled it over these many centuries. It is the external critique of our mental maps - checking for applicability in actuality.

To do one without the other is possible, but highly unlikely. Doing philosophy well, but without any science at all produces brilliant but fundamentally fictional maps - it is closer to science fiction (or religious literature which amounts to the same thing). Doing science well, but without any philosophy at all produces incoherence.

If your map uses bright yellow lines to indicate a massive freeway on one portion of your map, but a cowpath on another, you will have difficulties using your map. These difficulties will inevitably creep into your science. - and of course, if you are using a map of Mordor but want to find Morris, Minn, well, then you need more help than an intro to biology course. . . .

I agree with so many of those posting here about the vacuity of all the blah blah blah - but the solution is not to pretend that philosophy is itself the cause -

Might I get some raving response? hmm, how bout if I point out that Dawkins' memetic replication hypothesis is not science - it is philosophy. It is an epistemology, a theory of how we learn. Unfortunately the Venerable D does not offer any logical empirical evidence for his theory, rather, he merely draws from the language of one level of biological datum, and applies it to another. But the basic idea is far from original: it is basically identical to the epistemology of Hobbes - back in the early 17th century. And truth be told, both science and philosophy have come a long way since then - it is unfortunate that so few have tried to learn the best from both.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | November 2, 2009 9:21 AM

Knockgoats,

If you disprove A, you automatically prove ~A.

Perhaps David can change it to "science can only disprove a theory". Let's say you have disproven Phlogiston theory (A), then you know 'not Phlogiston theory' (~A). But 'not Phlogiston theory' isn't really a theory, but a (large) set of theories. So in the end you only eliminated a possibility.

Posted by: Knockgoats | November 2, 2009 10:28 AM

Perhaps David can change it to "science can only disprove a theory". - Feynmaniac

That would at least have the advantage of not being obviously absurd. Whether it's true would depend on how widely you define "theory". What is true is that (in science and any other empirical domain) you can disprove but not prove a universal generalization. But I'd argue that many things we happily call scientific theories do not have this logical form. For example, there is the theory of the endosymbiotic origin of eukaryotes, the theory of plate tectonics, the theory that RNA preceded DNA as the carrier of genetic information. If we accept that these can be disproved, I think we must also accept they can be proved - in either case, the proof/disproof would not necessarily be final - but this is true even in mathematics, because mathematicians are not immune to error.

Posted by: Knockgoats | November 2, 2009 11:06 AM

I think a Bayesian approach of assigning a degree-of-belief to theories based on how consistent they are with the data and the principle of parsimony might be the best approach, but who knows? - Feynmaniac

I'm inclined to think that a Bayesian approach works really well in domains where it makes sense to assign probabilities (e.g. medical diagnosis - where IIRC it has actually been shown to improve expert performance when used); but that in areas where it doesn't, much less so. In judgements of scientific theories, I think one can at best assign broad qualitative categories: practically certain, very likely, quite likely, plausible, quite unlikely..., and beyond that, give specific reasons for and against.

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 2, 2009 11:38 AM

(There is a way of phylogenetic analysis that is called "Bayesian analysis". Gives you a tree complete with – somehow always inflated – posterior probabilities for every node. Has advantages and disadvantages over classical parsimony and maximum likelihood.)

Posted by: Knockgoats | November 2, 2009 12:16 PM

Yes, except that ¬A is not a single possibility. Science is not like American journalism where there are exactly two sides to every question.

This shows that you don't understand the logical formalism: there is no semantic asymmetry between A and ~A: given any two statements that are the negation of each other (either of which could be represented by A while the other is represented by ~A), disproving one proves the other.

Facts can't be proven or disproven, they just exist.

Absolute blithering nonsense. It has been proved that some non-avian theropods had feathers: we have the fossils to prove it. Equivalently, one can say: "That some non-avian theropods had feathers, has been proved to be a fact". A fact is just a true proposition about the world.

That the eukaryotes originated somehow (and if it be by Last-Thursdayism) is a fact, or at least logically inevitable, or something.

It is a fact. It is not logically inevitable: eukaryotes could, logically, always have existed. Note that I'm not saying that the theory of the endosymbiotic origin of eukaryotes has been proved, but that it could be, because this theory does not take the form of a universal generalization, but concerns a specific past event.

Even the basic assumption behind phylogenetics, that there is a phylogeny (as opposed to Last-Thursdayism) to reconstruct, cannot be proven.

If you insist on the mathematical standard of proof, it cannot be disproved either. If you want to say science cannot prove, then it cannot disprove either. It really is that simple.

Parsimony is very nicely applicable, however, so I still say that phylogenetics is a science. Would Popper have disagreed?

I'm not sure. He concentrated almost entirely on certain parts of physics - those that could with some plausibility be forced into the mould of universal generalizations - so far as the philosophy of science was concerned.

Posted by: Benj Hellie | November 2, 2009 1:35 PM

OK where were we ...

@ David Marjanovic: thanks for the question about Popper, it's a good one. Central difficulty was that he bought into Hume's mistaken criticisms of inductive reasoning: A. it's *consistent* with my evidence that the sun won't rise tomorrow; B. the rational bearing of thoughts on one another is exhausted by relations of implication and contradiction; hence C. I am equally rational in thinking the sun will/won't rise tomorrow.

The difficulty here is B: maybe if we had fancier math we would be able to say something more nuanced about rationality. The discussion above gestures in the right direction, namely *Bayesianism*: my evidence that the sun has risen every day since the early 70s can be regarded as boosting the probability of some general hypothesis that entails it will rise tomorrow more than those competitors which entail that it won't (in light of antecedent assessments of the probability of those hypotheses and my evidence, and in accord with the standard Bayes rule).

As it happens the godfather of this system is Carnap and its father is Dick Jeffrey, who converted the whole team at Princeton to Bayesianism (Harman, Lewis, van Fraassen). Obviously this stuff has been taken up by vision scientists and all sorts of risk analysts. Lots of dudes in philosophy depts (including one of my junior colleagues) are working out technical and foundational questions about this or that aspect of the system.

Posted by: Benj Hellie | November 2, 2009 2:22 PM

@ EThompson

Three threads here: (1) formal contributions by phi since 1959 (2) who is awesomer phi or sci (3) neuroscience and consciousness

(1)

if you will recall your initial question was "what did phi do since 1959" and I gave you a big long set of answers -- check #128 for yet another one. What you characterize as "glibness" and "overstatement" I could think of rather more insulting words for.

It is indeed true that Tarski invented formal semantics. Also a range of other points you conveniently overlooked: eg Carnap, various other philosophers, and especially Kripke invented possible worlds semantics, which as people tell me is a big deal in CS. Eg the computer, which people tell me is a big deal in CS (tho that was prior to your arbitrary cutoff date of 1959, so I suppose it doesn't count).

You evidently don't have the background to understand my point that philosophers were also among the inventors of formal semantics *for natural languages* in particular. Tarski did not do this, but invented semantics for artificial languages. That's not a criticism, just an observation, so let me clarify. This project is part of *linguistics* considered as a natural science rather than of *logic* considered as a branch of mathematics (if perhaps a very disreputable such branch). The key work here was done in collaboration by Partee, Davidson, Lewis, Montague, Kripke, Stalnaker, and a few other figures in the late 1960s. This field has developed extremely extensively since then (alongside its sister field of formal pragmatics, in which Stalnaker is the major player), with phi in active partnership along with sci. But I repeat myself.

Lots of other stuff I mentioned, no need for me to repeat myself, it's all up there for you to reread.

So I was indeed "attempting" to school you, and I suppose I failed but mostly because you didn't pay very much attention to the lesson. Apologize! just kidding.

couple of side points: You allege that some linguists don't like Chomsky; that's fine, almost all philosophers don't like the Churchlands, so what. ling isn't psychology, that's a contentious claim but it certainly seems to imply that a lot of what the vision guys do is in the same boat. earlier you explained that neuroscience was going to make all this stuff obsolete when it explains how the brain represents the world: I'm not especially confident in the ability of neuroscientists to understand the explananda here.

(2)

Obviously I was kidding about the bug legs and stuff -- both taxonomic and explanatory science are hella awesome by me! -- but there is a deeper point here.

I think this dispute about who is kewler is really rather unbecoming of scholars. Philosophers are perfectly happy to give respect to scientists, it's rather odd that it doesn't go the other way around.

I wonder who is really insecure here. Maybe when one spends most of one's work day worrying about bug legs (admittedly, as a cog in a vast machine of normal science that collectively tells us great things) one can get a bit defensive. Jealous, even, of the philosopher who is not a cog in the machine, who isn't lashed to the fickle behavior of experimental apparatus, and who gets to think about the coolest thing he can come up with all the time.

There is also a big cognitive dissonance, I suspect, generated by our sense that we can teach you a lesson about stuff you just wanted to get on with. We talk about the first chapter of X-ology 101 and say "this is incoherent in ways XYZ". You say "who cares, it works just fine, let me get back to my bug legs!" On the one hand scientists wear the mantle of rationality, but on the other hand they are in most cases really not very good at its most elementary manouevres. They like to ignore this. We are the masters of the elementary manoeuvres, so we raise fears that the whole thing is built on sand; but because you are not as good as arguing about this sort of thing as we are, the fears can't be easily made to go away without some asinine dismissal of the whole field.

There is also the role of money at work. The typical bench guy probably costs what $2M/year, and there are 50 people in his dept, 8 depts overall in the university, whereas we cost what 1/8 of that each in a single dept of 20. So the typical campus-wide budget for science is, what, 160x that for philosophy. And yet we dare to say that we are the masters of rationality! Does not compute.

Finally the scientist is always in and out of the doghouse with the broader culture. In the 50s you guys were the masters, it was a sort of golden age. But the last 20 years or so haven't been so great: * the right wing started smashing you in a very public way * environmental worries made a lot of people, including probably a lot of scientists, be all "my god what have we done" * elementary physics ground to a halt and with it the claim of science to be getting at the fundamental * elsewhere specialization made new discoveries impossible to popularize * genuine frontiers like your field bump too closely with disreputable fields like mine and psychology.

Somewhat inclined to think that this infighting is not good for the academy in general. I definitely think that popularization is a good idea and wish more philosophers would get involved, but unfortunately the dissemination systems are set up around the cold war model where scientists were mandarins. I'm somewhat inclined to think that philosophical questions tend to be of more intrinsic interest to most nonacademics than scientific questions are, so the attitude I'm getting on this blog seems to be pretty short-sighted.

(3)

I read your reaction to Chalmers, once I got past the waste heat the content seemed to be like "no way, dude".

Basically, that lit seems to point to two difficulties with scientific explanation in general. note that these difficulties are *features* of the system, which were *built in from the start*. However they are also *limitations*, and treating them otherwise is both historical ignorance and philistinism.

(i) first-person/third-person perspective. science takes the god's eye view rather than being subjective. but my experience of the world is subjective. science therefore leaves this aspect of experience out. sociologists worry about this a lot, the point is pretty far removed from the concerns of most hard science types, so they have a hard time appreciating it, but that is not the same as "it doesn't exist".

(ii) quantity/quality. math doesn't tell me about the nature of red, it only tells me about the structural facts that make it possible.

so whatever your field tells us it will be presented from the third person perspective, in quantitative terms.
But our experience of the world is first-person and qualitative. hence your story cannot explain our experience.

this can be mathed up more but that is the basic idea behind the "hard problem".

Posted by: Eric Thomson | November 2, 2009 3:25 PM

Benj:
My argument wasn't 'No way dude,' rather it was 'Chalmers has assumed what he wants to prove, and here is precisely how he did it in his book.' He did it again when he responded in the comments to the post, which I pointed out in the thread.

You gave two arguments that conscious experience will not be explained by neuroscience.

Argument 1: it isn't clear what calling consciousness "first person" and science "third person" does: that is a swell grammatical distinction but it isn't an argument. 'I was on the train from Durham to DC' is first person but not ontologically spooky.

If you are claiming that subjective experience is important, that we should be able to explain awareness of rainbows and stomachaches, why we experience red when such and such state happens, I agree. That is just to restate the problem, not to offer an argument with ontological impact.

Just because there are two perspectives on something doesn't imply there are two different things. I can observe a voltage signal in the brain with two different measuring instruments, but that doesn't mean I am measuring two different voltages.

As for the second argument about qualitative/quantitative, it seems to be based on a mistaken understanding of how neuroscience works. Explanation in neuroscience is much more complicated than giving an equation, it includes math to be sure, but more importantly a complex functional/causal decomposition of a system, as Bill Bechtel's excellent work describes quite well. You would need an argument that biological explanation, as it actually works in practice, will never be sufficient (not to mention you'd need to get all soothsayer about what methods will be developed).

I always appreciate the confidence some philosophers have in their predictions about what neuroscience will never be able to show in the next couple of centuries.

The dualistic philosphers will continue on trying to explain consciousness (or, rather, they will continue to shout that neuroscience will never explain it, using their boilerplate zombie bat qualia arguments), and the folks taking a nondualistic neuronal approach will continue to acquire data, make predictions, and do the usual neuroscientist things.

For those that haven't made up their minds already, only time will tell which is a more productive approach. This argument won't be settled by armchair pilots and their Oxbridge word ninja, it will be settled by the evidence.
=====================

As for the putative success stories in philosophy, we could argue about who is a philosopher (e.g., Turing, von Neumann? I don't think so), which results there is a consensus about (e.g., the work in formal semantics). You waved in the direction of sociology without giving examples, tried to claim game theory and the computer as invented by philosophers [sic], and generally were not giving specifics such as when you mentioned 'some folks' at various schools. There wasn't anything for me to respond to concretely. Is that supposed to be convincing?

The most compelling case is in the formal semantics of natural languages, and while I still don't see anything concrete I conceded that philosophers do work in that field, for what that field is worth. (Whether there are results that philosophers would have a consensus about in terms of being results, and being important, is another question that somehow has been forgotten).

Incidentally, 50 years is pretty damned generous time window to ask for some results. If you were applying for a grant, you'd need results in the past three years to have a hope of getting funded, so no whining allowed.

Thanks it was fun to see someone defend philosophy. It was a noble effort, perhaps some people here are convinced. I'll stick with my 'question incubator and generator' view because it best describes what you guys contribute to the world, at least from my perspective as a neuroscientist.

Posted by: Eric Thomson | November 2, 2009 5:02 PM

Benji's ranting free-association of words and giggling indicates that we've hit a nadir in the conversation. Rather than just cite people, perhaps give substantive arguments or evidence. I even clarified for you this distinction between "first" and "third" person, as the readers of this site (and normal people generally) don't know what philosophers mean by first- and third-person, don't know the implications of this shop talk (I'll give philosophers that, they are really good at inventing neologisms for simple ideas).

I make it a point to ask philosophers, every five years, of the major findings, discoveries, results that have been made on consciousness in philosophy. We all get a good laugh out of it.

Good luck with that. I'm bowing out of this discussion as it has degenerated into strange hysteria from Benj as he tries to show I don't know what I am talking about. I think there is enough evidence in this thread for people to decide for themselves.

Posted by: truth machine | November 2, 2009 5:42 PM

In the 300+ years since no one has really said anything illuminating to respond to his "mill" argument.

I'm coming in at the end and haven't read the preceding comments, but that's just stupid. This should be clear enough to anyone with a clue just by quoting Leibniz's argument:

One is obliged to admit that perception and what depends upon it is inexplicable on mechanical principles, that is, by figures and motions. In imagining that there is a machine whose construction would enable it to think, to sense, and to have perception, one could conceive it enlarged while retaining the same proportions, so that one could enter into it, just like into a windmill. Supposing this, one should, when visiting within it, find only parts pushing one another, and never anything by which to explain a perception. Thus it is in the simple substance, and not in the composite or in the machine, that one must look for perception.

This is a fallacy of composition, pure and simple. See, e.g., http://www.springerlink.com:80/content/j009m56335341362/ :

Imagine a drop of water expanded in size until each molecule is the size of a grindstone in a mill. If you walked through such a now mill-sized drop of water, you might see wondrous things but you would see nothing wet. But this hardly shows that water does not consist solely of H2O molecules.

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 2, 2009 5:59 PM

@ David Marjanovic: thanks for the question about Popper, it's a good one.

Er... do you mean my question if he'd have agreed that phylogenetics (as done today and as not done in Popper's lifetime) is a science? No, that's a question about a counterfactual that is, at most, of biographical interest. I only brought it up because I started by implying that I agree with what I've read about (!) Popper's falsificationism – which is not tenable in its entirety if I disagree with him about the importance of parsimony.

[...] Hume's mistaken criticisms of inductive reasoning: A. it's *consistent* with my evidence that the sun won't rise tomorrow; B. the rational bearing of thoughts on one another is exhausted by relations of implication and contradiction; hence C. I am equally rational in thinking the sun will/won't rise tomorrow.

Is that how Popper understood it? Because it's not how I understand it: my prediction that the sun will rise tomorrow is deducted from the theory of gravity (relativity, that is), the laws of conservation of momentum and angular momentum, and the like, plus astronomical observations showing (when combined with the same theories of physics) that the Earth (let alone the Sun) won't collide with a comparably large celestial body and thus won't experience measurable changes to its rotation tonight.

Why should I care?

Because your original claim is false, and indeed absurd.

OK, so disproving the Phlogiston theory* proves Not-The-Phlogiston-Theory. Fine. Given the fact that this encompasses several mutually contradictory ideas, how does that help us? If it doesn't, why should I care?

* Bad example: as far as I know, it wasn't ever disproved – rather, the hypothesis that combustion is a chemical reaction with oxygen merely turned out to be a lot more parsimonious. But I haven't looked into the history of that, and it doesn't matter here anyway.

So you equate discovery of a fact and proof of an idea.

No I don't. You said facts could not be proved. They can, as I showed. You were just wrong.

We just don't use "prove" in the same sense. For me, that's a word that can apply to ideas but not to facts. Discovering a fact is like an argumentum ad lapidem – within methodological naturalism, it's not a logical fallacy, but it's not in the same category as a proof. It's not comparable.

What are the "results" in particle physics more generally since the development of QED,

Electroweak theory...? The confirmation of the existence of the t quark predicted by the Standard Model, together with the confirmation of the predicted mass? The confirmation of the prediction that neutrinos have mass? The discovery that K⁰ mesons decay one way more commonly than the other, which leads to an explanation of why there's more matter than antimatter in the universe?

I don't even need to go into the areas where no consensus exists yet, like loop quantum gravity having become a lot more presentable, and string theory having become more presentable by having developed into brane theory.

And then, of course, the LHC will soon be able to test some of the supersymmetry stuff.

As mentioned, I'm not a physicist, and I don't play one on TV.

which, famously, does not explain anything?

What?

I thought it explains, ultimately, everything that has anything to do with electrical charge, such as the fact that I haven't collapsed into a neutron "star" yet? What have I missed?

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 2, 2009 6:08 PM

That's supposed to be a superscript zero behind the K. I hate what this font does to numbers.

I'm coming in at the end and haven't read the preceding comments, but that's just stupid. This should be clear enough to anyone with a clue just by quoting Leibniz's argument:

...Wow. From today's perspective, that's egregiously stupid indeed.

Of course, Leibniz had no idea of chemistry on the atom/molecule level (electric polarities of molecules and the like), so the logical fallacy he committed wasn't as obvious as it is today. Still... as a famous philosopher he should have noticed.

Posted by: Benj Hellie | November 2, 2009 6:42 PM

@ EThompson -- the discussion had reached a nadir with all the ignorant hatin many hours before I got involved. Your childish dishonesty and foolish and ignorant prejudices merely foiled my attempt to elevate it from there.

I notice you keep making the same error Chalmers schooled you for on your blog. What to expect from someone who can't even distinguish chuckling from giggling!

@ DMarjanovic -- I'm in the presence of people who actually know what they're talking about here so I should be more careful. I thought the thing about QED was that it was supposed to be a pure calculational device without any significance for how the world is (other than it behaves in accord with the calculations!). So while it's true that QED may provide a set of regularities which in some sense "unify" the sorts of phenomena you are describing, if we are looking for *why* this all is in some deeper sense we will not find it. How far off am I?

"Results" being used in the sense of Trash-talkin' Thompson, systems that pretty much everyone accepts the significance of. My recollection was that there is a minority of bigshot holdouts against supersymmetry, which maybe means that they aren't results_Thompson.

@ truth machine -- ah, can you cite me some of these vitalist claims? Author and work would do. I wonder whether they are really made in the same spirit as my claim. I have read (and reread!) Hardin's book multiple times since I first bought it in 1991, indeed having published on it. You are perhaps referring to the notorious Crane and Piantanida eye-tracking experiments which were later discredited when Piantanida admitted he was the only person who had actually experienced the relevant effect. This sad story is told in the second edition of Hardin's book -- I'm thinking you have only read the first edition, yes? I am a fan of 'Quining qualia' but for the most part do not share Dennett's judgements about what is good or useful. You of course are free to follow him, if you like -- though if you're looking for a philosopher to follow I would recommend you follow me!

Leibniz's worries were all about the quantitative/qualitative stuff I argue with Trash-talkin' Thompson about up above. Historians of science know well that the sort of stuff you guys work on only gets off the ground if you set aside the hard problem at the outset. Descartes and Galileo were the masterminds who got this started but sadly their progeny are ignorant of the wellsprings of their tradition.

Posted by: truth machine | November 2, 2009 7:06 PM

eye-tracking experiments which were later discredited when Piantanida admitted he was the only person who had actually experienced the relevant effect

Even if this is true it has no bearing on Danto's point.

Leibniz's worries

are clear enough:

perception and what depends upon it is inexplicable on mechanical principles .... Thus it is in the simple substance, and not in the composite or in the machine, that one must look for perception.

It's argumentum ad ignorantiam, but at least he had the excuse of lacking all knowledge of the correlations between mental phenomena and brain physiology.

if you're looking for a philosopher to follow I would recommend you follow me!

That would be extraordinarily foolish on multiple grounds.

Posted by: truth machine | November 2, 2009 7:53 PM

I often balk at perfectly good scientists saying silly thinks like 'You can't prove a negative.'

You can't prove a universal empirical negative -- not for logical reasons, but for pragmatic ones.

For one, when did proof become the standard in science?

Your complaint is misdirected; the claim that you can't prove a negative is usually in response to someone who demands such a proof.

Posted by: Benj Hellie | November 2, 2009 8:43 PM

@ truthmachine:

"no bearing on Danto's point" -- well it does have a bearing on the fact that you seem to be a falsehood machine!

also how about some of those citations from the vitalists I was asking for, "makin stuff up machine"?

also, up on 143, what exactly is the mistake you are referring to there? stop keeping it to yourself. or maybe you're just being a "handwaving machine"!

I'm definitely getting the sense you could use a philosopher to follow ... but after this exchange, I'm not sure if I'll take you: maybe you'll have to go find a different BFF. oh snap!

Posted by: truth machine | November 2, 2009 8:56 PM

well it does have a bearing on the fact that you seem to be a falsehood machine!

Danto's point is valid regardless of whether Crane and Piantanida's findings were discredited -- that's a fact, so fuck you asshole.

Posted by: IaMoL | November 2, 2009 9:10 PM

My money is on TM.

Posted by: truth machine | November 2, 2009 9:29 PM

though if you're looking for a philosopher to follow I would recommend you follow me!

WTF ?

Take a look at Benj's Amazon profile -- he's the sort (well, one of the sorts) that gives philosophy a bad name.

Posted by: Rorschach | November 2, 2009 9:42 PM

Rorty isn't exactly the representative of our field

To be fair, I also interpreted that as being a way of saying "he isnt a real philosopher" .

Posted by: truth machine | November 3, 2009 1:10 AM

To be fair, I also interpreted that as being a way of saying "he isnt a real philosopher" .

It's hardly "fair" to interpret a statement as being fallacious when its plain language meaning is not. As I said, you have to be quite a dolt (nothing new there, clinteas) not to understand that a "no true scotsman fallacy" requires a denial that someone or something is a "true" or "real" X. If some godbot blathers about how Francis Collins is an expert on the genome and he thinks that the DNA was designed by God, it's quite reasonable to point out that Collins is not representative of biologists -- no fallacy there, no claim that he's not a real biologist because no real biologist would believe what he does -- just that most don't, and his beliefs are not entailed by a knowledge of biology. Rather than being fallacious, the observation that Rorty is not representative of philosophers is a counter to a strawman fallacy, specifically "you're whining because I'm not impressed with folks like Rorty?" -- that's only an apt characterization if Rorty is representative of philosophers. That's not what anyone is "whining" about, but rather about this sort of cherry picking to dismiss the entire enterprise of philosophy. 'Tis Himself says he has a graduate degree in a liberal art. Should we dismiss the liberal arts because of all the stupid things that TH and others with degrees in the liberal arts say? Diane G., in a particularly uninformed post, referred to Alan Sokal. Is it necessary to point out that he published his hoax paper in the liberal arts journal "Social Text"? From its web page:

Social Text covers a broad spectrum of social and cultural phenomena, applying the latest interpretive methods to the world at large. A daring and controversial leader in the field of cultural studies, the journal consistently focuses attention on questions of gender, sexuality, race, and the environment, publishing key works by the most influential social and cultural theorists. As a journal at the forefront of cultural theory, Social Text invites provocative interviews and challenging articles from emerging critical voices. Each issue breaks new ground in the debates about postcolonialism, postmodernism, and popular culture.

Whether or not that is "real philosophy", it is not representative of the field of philosophy.

Posted by: truth machine | November 3, 2009 2:41 AM

as you know I still think

As I've noted before, I don't care what you think -- you don't possess the knowledge or intellect for it to be indicative of anything beyond yourself.

There are way too many latinism-generators that call themselves philosophers however these days who fill books and papers with empty word salad, and as you said above, they're the ones that give philosophy a bad name.

That's not what I said, fool. Benj gives philosophy a bad name because he's a pompous ass, not because he's incompetent.

And by the way, I think "representative of the field of philosophy" is as well defined a term as "representative of the field of soccer fandom".

Neither of those are "terms", and both are well-defined -- certainly as well-defined as 'Tis Himself's "folks like Rorty". That's the problem with twits like you and Morales -- you pay no attention to context, even when it is pointed out to you. Again, "you're whining because I'm not impressed with folks like Rorty?" is only an apt characterization if Rorty is representative of philosophers. If he isn't, or if the notion isn't well-defined, then TH is spouting bullshit -- and of course I use that word because of the context: 'Tis Himself's #4 and #25.

Posted by: Rorschach | November 3, 2009 3:00 AM

Benj gives philosophy a bad name because he's a pompous ass, not because he's incompetent.

I'm curious how you would define "incompetent" in the context of philosophy !
So if someone has studied the major concepts and can sum them up concisely, but anything they write is garbled nonsense, does that make them competent or incompetent?

you don't possess the knowledge or intellect for it to be indicative of anything beyond yourself.

Agree on the knowledge bit, that's why I stayed out of the discussions on particulars,wouldn't have a clue ,and not pretending that I do.Intellect, ah well, I'm ok with a bit of sledging, I just dont think aquired knowledge of a topic is an indicator of intellect.

Posted by: Rorschach | November 3, 2009 3:18 AM

Popper was a philosopher; Barbara Forrest is a philosopher. You cannot get the sorts of things they contribute out of a telescope or a collider.

Which is true, and exactly what I said, just the other way around, that philosophy can contribute in areas away from "earth sciences", and has a valuable contribution to make in those fields.Just like a philosopher won't find answers to current problems in particle physics, the LHC cant answer questions about the human existence, or logic, or the philosophy of science for that matter.

Posted by: truth machine | November 3, 2009 3:37 AM

Which is true, and exactly what I said

No, it's nothing like what you said, which was that philosophy has been replaced by things like telescopes as a means of "answering scientific problems" -- but that's a category mistake; they don't play the same role in answering scientific questions/solving scientific problems, and never have.

the philosophy of science for that matter

Funny, but you didn't say that at all until just now, so it can't be exactly what you said. Here's a clue: the philosophy of science plays an an important role in solving scientific problems, and philosophy more generally still plays a very important role in problems of cosmology, quantum physics, quantum computing, cognitive science, computer science, etc.

Posted by: Kel, OM | November 3, 2009 3:56 AM

The funny thing here is that Wimsatt is known for his critique of memes -- Dawkins' light-on-fact speculation in "The Selfish Gene". PZ says he doesn't know what Wimsatt is talking about, but that's not Wimsatt's fault.

Interesting. Where can I read further on this?

Though I'm not sure how that invalidates my statement on post #7 that ultimately there's got to be some tie-in to evidence.

Posted by: Q.E.D | November 3, 2009 2:49 PM

Much of the "Philosophy is bullshit" shouting posted above reminds me of a high school arguments between science nerds and arts geeks. It's as shallow now as it was then.

Science and Philosophy are both incredibly fascinating tools for learning. Philosophy teaches people the principles of logic and logical fallacies. Philosophy teaches critical thinking and skepticism. Philosophy teaches how to debate effectively. Philosophy teaches about the history of human thought. Philosophy teaches about Einstein and relativity. Philosophy teaches people who are crap at maths to love science.

The premise of many of the 167 previous posts above is a false dilemma: "only one of either science or philosophy is a valuable discipline for understanding reality". To continue the high school analogy above: science boy needs to get over himself and talk to philosophy girl to find out she's pretty cool and doesn't have any religious qualms about getting out of her prom dress.

Science and Philosophy: It's not an either/or proposition.

Q.E.D

Posted by: Rorschach | November 3, 2009 5:37 PM

The premise of many of the 167 previous posts above is a false dilemma: "only one of either science or philosophy is a valuable discipline for understanding reality".

Define "understanding reality" .Very broad brush !
And you can't seriously say that the kind of understanding and knowledge we gain from reading, say Slotterdijk or any other contemporary philosopher is of the same quality as that gained through scientific experiments
.

Given a question, use the most promising methods available to answer it

Well, yes, exactly !

Posted by: Eric Thomson | November 5, 2009 9:45 AM

Another quote, from Driesch's 'Science and PHilosophy of the ORganism' (1908 I believe) page 142:
No kind of causality based upon the constellations of single physical and chemical acts can account for organic individual development; this development is not to be explained by any hypothesis about configuration of physical and chemical agents. Therefore there must be something else which is to be regarded as the sufficient reason of individual form-production...Life, at least morphogenesis, is not a specialized arrangement of inorganic events.

[...]

'[S]omething new and elemental must always be introduced whewhat is known of other elemental facts is proved to be unable to explain the facts in a new field of investigation.'

Science 1 Philosophy 0