If People Could Get Just One Thing From Philosophy…
Happy World Philosophy Day!
I don’t want to detract from all of the festivities or dampen the fun, but it is worth noting on World Philosophy Day 2024 that despite the unavoidability of philosophical thinking, despite its ubiquity across the planet and throughout history, its role in culture and its place in educational institutions is never assured. And in some parts of the world, including the United States, it seems like threats to it are gathering strength.
So while I hope all you philosophers reading this are enjoying the day, being fêted by your loved ones, friends, and neighbors, taking part in your local World Philosophy Day parades, being handed the keys to your cities, etc., I think it would be great if you could take a moment to reflect on the value of philosophy, and how you might get the non-philosophers around you to recognize that value.
Most people won’t spend their lives studying philosophy. Some may take a class in it, or read a book or watch a video about it. But most people won’t directly get (perhaps because they won’t get the opportunity to directly get) much out of philosophy. There may not be realistic possibilities for conveying a whole lot to a whole lot of people.
So pick one thing—one lesson, one takeaway, one idea or question to think about—whatever it is you think would be one good thing you could pass on to someone to convey something of the value of philosophy. And let us know what it is.
Thanks, philosofriends.
The distinction between free and bound variables.
My favorite description of philosophy has always been “thinking in slow motion“. Having have had some exposure to disciplines outside philosophy, I felt that non-philosophers were often too quick in their thinking. They wanted truth! They wanted answers! And they wanted it now! This sort of hasty thinking often then leads to overgeneralized results, vague descriptions, and neglect of subtleties. So on this World Philosophy Day, I would encourage everyone–including professional philosophers!–to think and reflect, but slowly.
I like the description too, but the slow motion thinking often reacts to some hasty argument, for example the surprise exam paradox. Philosophers should value people who devise such hasty arguments for slow motion thinkers to chew on – they, or some of them, are philosophers too and philosophy would be a lot duller, at best, without their contribution.
I’m not entirely sure why the speed at which one thinks would avoid overgeneralized results, etc. One could do sloppy reasoning very slowly.
Or you could think very quickly about many angles for one issue or question, but do this thoroughly and in great detail. Is it a matter of ‘thinking slowly’ or is it a matter of checking your work, doubting your first assumption, finding out what else is out there, etc? Every thought one has while doing this could be rapid-fire but you’d just go back over them until you were sure you’d done an exceptionally careful job. That seems more like being slow to conclude anything decisively before you put a lot of work into it but I realize that doesn’t sound quite as good as ‘slow thinking.’
To see how morally and psychologically dissonant it is that we love our pets and yet subject billions of animals to unimaginable hell
The habit of doubting one’s own beliefs.
The most truthful and accurate answer to every single philosophical question is: it depends. So, it’s learning to reflect upon and think through that on which it depends, and doing so with others, either in dialogue or through reading, that constitutes philosophical learning. You learn to recognize, and accept the existence of, reasonable competing answers to the most important questions, and you learn that, since no one is going to tell you which answers are best, you must either decide for yourself or live with your ambivalence.
For me the most important thing is making it a standard, ongoing thing in your life to actively try to construct the reason why people who disagree with you on controversial subjects think the way they do. Built into this is an assumption: that most people’s views on controversial subjects come from some (maybe largely implicit) line of reasoning that is at least somewhat plausible. People generally are not evil or stupid, even if you think their beliefs are. It is almost always worthwhile to try to come up with charitable analyses of why they believe those things, and it’s a skill that is difficult to learn (and never really finally mastered, of course).
It would be nice if philosophers themselves could learn this skill
For sure! You don’t just have it granted to you when you join the club. But I do think it’s not crazy to talk about it as a benefit that philosophy is in an especially good place to provide (when done right, of course).
I want to agree with this, but it’s often difficult for me to believe the “assumption.”
The truth is terrible. Yay!
Thauma at all things
The reputational ranking of departments in the Anglophone and how neatly it reflects the changes in hiring and retirement patterns.
To not be afraid of thinking for yourself
We have a lot to learn: we don’t even know all that we don’t know. But making progress on that—especially when it comes to what we don’t know about things we think we do—is one thing philosophy is especially good at.
And how’s that different from what science can also be good at?
Hello everyone. I am not a philosopher but as a fan of analytic philosophy (and after having completed a freshman’s year of Philosophy at the University in the past) here is my take on the two (distinct, I think) questions that prof Weinberg posits: “[what] the value of philosophy [is], and how you might get the non-philosophers around you to recognize that value”.
The value I would choose to promote is analytic Philosophy’s usefulness in helping us clarify both in our own minds and to our disagreeing interlocutors the exact content and structure of our disagreement (an important corollary being that it empowers members underrepresented oppressed groups make their case more efficiently). And I would try to make non-philosophers understand this through a pertinent example that is of interest to my addressee. Now a pertinent example for demonstrating the value of Philosophy that I have in mind that is relevant to my interests (pandemic ethics, vaccination ethics and Ethics more generally) is a public disagreement between the 2 of the 3 signatories (profs of Medicine Bhattacharya and Kulldorff) of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) and their opponents. The latter accuse all 3 the GBD signatories of “wanting people infected”, referring of course to non-vulnerable people (given that it was known to everyone that GBD was asking for protecting the vulnerable, and that therefore the principle of charity requires that we interpret their objections (or at least the relevant part of their objections) to GBD as endangering the non-vulnerable through exposure to the risk of near-certain infection by removing lockdowns). Prof Bhattacharya gratuitously interpreted the position of his opponents as accusing him of endangering the vulnerable, and he triumphantly beat this strawman by declaring that the GBD clearly did not intend the vulnerable to be exposed to any risk of infection – a true point but insufficient to answer the broader allegation of the alleged endangering of the non-vulnerable. Philosophy could be useful into bringing up this Gricean principle of charity in order to show the bad faith with which prof Bhattacharya is debating (and in the process help show how Philosophy of Language helps us make sense of extremely important contemporary issues such as racist speech acts that are disputed by the other side). Prof Bhattacharya has made many more analytic blunders that philosophy can help us recognize, such as sounding as if he makes much of the fact that his behaviour, exemplified in the GBD demands, was a mere allowing, and not a doing/ causing https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/doing-allowing/ , of the exposure of the non-vulnerable to the risk of infection. He is apparently under the misconception that his acti of moving his vocal chords in a way issuing to a demand to end lockdowns does not count as an act; but it does, because speech acts are acts, and not an allowing ( by the way, Jonathan Bennett in the Act Itself has a very good example that shows what exactly it was that made Prof Bhattacharya err into thinking that he has a passable ethical argument: a car slides towards the cliff but a rock is so positioned that it will stop it. Agent (intentionally kicks away the rock, and the car falls to the cliff. Prof Bhattacharya must have thought that because the car was already moving towards the cliff (the virus was out there waiting out the lockdowns), removing the difference-making barrier to its trajectory does not count as a blameworthy way of acting in a way such that the car is destroyed, and that it only counts as a permissible allowing of the destruction of the car, as it is presumably in prof Bhattacharya’s mind in a the different case of not interfering to place a rock in the trajectory of the sliding car to stop it from falling – why <i>that</i> would not be blameworthy is a question better addressed to prof Bhattacharya). Prof Kulldorff sounds like he is trying to mount against the particular allegation against the GBD a defense in terms of the doctrine of double effect https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/ or as an appeal to the principle of not using people as a means. The latter sounds like a joke, given that both he and prof Bhattacharrya were vocally appreciative of the fact that young non-vulnerable people, if they got infected, would get to meet their ex hypothesi (per the GBD’s counsel) isolated vulnerable elder relatives sooner rather than later because natural infection of the young would confer temporary immunity to them and thus make it safe to bring granny back home. He is apparently unaware that if this state of affairs that he is considering as desirable (i.e. non vulnerable young getting infected sooner rather than later) has no bad consequences at all, as he explicitly thinks about the natural infections of the non-vulnerable young, then there is reason to not merely welcome this state of affairs, as the scientists of the GBD did explicitly, or to tacitly and indirectly aim for it, as the GBD did by asking for lockdowns to be removed so that the virus will, quote, “sweep through the population”, so that herd immunity will develop in around 3 months through natural infections of the non-vulnerable and thus end the pandemic through the development of herd immunity via infections, as they claimed, but directly aim for hypothesized non-bad state of affairs, like prof Gupta (the 3d scientist of the GBD) did by asking early on in the pandemic all healthy young people to go get infected intentionally sooner than later to protect granny (I disagreed with her on the moral blackmail element of her demand, because she wasn’t leaving any ethical room to non-vulnerable young people who were afraid of Covid to prudently wait for the vaccine before they get exposed; I did not disagree with her on her plan’s scientific wisdom); In such a case prof Kulldorff should have been welcoming his opponents’ allegation about GBD’s wanting non-vulnerable people infected and hold it as a badge of honor, instead of disavowing it. There are more factual details and maybe other ways to interpret what the 2 scientists said (none of which makes them sound coherent, given the totality of their public statements), but I hope that my necessarily cursory discussion clearly shows the wealth of ethical considerations that get missed by people – even by prominent medical scientists such as prof Bhattacharya and Kulldorff, who, unbelievably, teach a critical thinking course without having a clue about basic Philosophical Ethics. Which brings me to a question I always meant to address to my intellectual heroes, i.e. you, the analytic philosophers: why are you not pressing the need for more moral philosophy in academic institutions and more moral philosophers (or philosophers simpliciter) to be given space in the public sphere? Prof Richard Chappell, with whom I am in staunch disagreement re some of his ethical positions both in practical and in theoretical Ethics, is a notable exception I am aware of in that he is systematically blogging; Isn’t there some way to have more like him, i.e. philosophers, to tackle ethical issues? It is not that you philosophers are more moral than us the public – you clearly are <i>not</i). But you can help us structure our thinking better and disagree with our enemies in a more focused way (especially in the role of coordinators of the discussions). What more is needed to demonstrate the value of philosophical technical expertise than by showing how pertinent it is for a swath of everyday issues that we the public eagerly discuss and disagree about? (issues in philosophy of Science or philosophy of Language inevitably will come up during all discussions about ethical issues, so it is not just moral philosophy that has a direct use).
Let me conclude by saying that you analytic philosophers are doing God’s <i>epistemic</i> work on Earth, never mind the moral failings that some of you exemplify 😊 (smiley). I am grateful to all of you for the former, and I really mean it without a hint of exaggeration, for reasons that I won’t expand on. I am really happy you exist.
PS 1 the links to Stanford’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy are not meant for you, but for the general public (given that I am not a philosopher, anyone coming across this comment of mine which I will repost on my Facebook page will not be a philosopher, and I think it is good to promote such introductory materials to the broader public).
Justin, you wrote “ But most people won’t directly get (perhaps because they won’t get the opportunity to directly get) much out of philosophy. There may not be realistic possibilities for conveying a whole lot to a whole lot of people.”
It seems like there’s an enormous amount of popular philosophy happening in Anglophone cultures today. It’s just not very well connected to the academy. It seems like there’s lots of popular philosophical interest in religion, in consciousness, in technology, in politics, in art. There are so many podcasts, YouTube channels, etc., as well as Substacks, etc. We might even be living in a golden age of philosophy.
An obvious caveat is that I don’t know whether this is true. It’s an educated guess. I’m really curious whether we might research this (e.g. how many YouTube philosophy channels, etc.? What is the audience size? etc.).
Maybe lots and lots of people are getting something out of philosophy. It just isn’t very closely connected with what we professionals think of as philosophy. I’m well aware that academic philosophers are thinking about how to do popular philosophy (and are doing it, for sure). But I suspect we still don’t have a good handle on these issues.
I would even say that there is a huge public interest in the humanities in general. There’s tons of content not just on philosophy, but also on e.g. art interpretation (people are moved by the art they consume, yes that includes video games, and want to know “what it means” — this shouldn’t even be a surprise!).
But just because this is done outside the academy, does it mean that it is “not very well connected to the academy”? Perhaps only in the same sense in which Hollywood does not seem very well connected to art schools.
The really good creators typically have a corresponding education, e.g. Abigail Thorn (PhilosophyTube) did a philosophy undergrad at St Andrews, Michael Burns (Wisecrack) has a Philosophy PhD and worked as a VAP, Natalie Wynn (Contrapoints) completed a Masters at Northwestern. They all have millions of viewers. I like Burns in particular; most philosophy professors have something to learn from him about teaching.
However, these creators are not engaged in what one might call research. Largely, their success lies in their ability to take academically established knowledge and translate/interpret/apply it to something culturally salient.
Compared to other fields, this situation does not seem to be all that unusual. Some scientists are also great science communicators, but it seems to be a rare skill. Most popular science content out there is produced outside of the academy by people with a science education (PBS Space Time is hosted by a professor, Matt O’Dowd, but they must have staff writers for this; Matt Parker is the best math communicator out there).
So instead of a lack of connection or relevance, perhaps our real worry is how we can make our administrators and prospective students see these connections that actually are there.
It might go some way towards addressing that worry if we could be better at making it manifest that the arcane distinctions we draw *actually bear* on these matters that are intrinsically interesting to so many people. I suppose our traditional approach is the historical one: trace the history of a philosophical debate from its intrinsically interesting origin through its intellectual history to its current, arcane state (although this too is an art that is getting lost in the ahistorical turn). But what these content creators do, from which we might want to take a cue, is to start with something interesting and work backwards to the philosophy. Do we really think that this is somehow beneath us?
Or, perhaps, have we gotten to comfortable in the safety of the arcane? After all, nobody will accuse someone deeply invested in the Gettier problem of being a culture warrior. And, if the Daily Nous comments are any indication, many philosophers are downright aghast at the suggestion that everyday politics or culture should even be acknowledged in a philosophy class. It is perhaps also this habit of seeking refuge in the arcane that leads to the perceived lack of connection to the very real public interest in philosophy.
(The situation seems to be a bit different with the substacks etc. This is where people really engage in theory-crafting (I can’t call it research) — but it is often bad and fallacious. I don’t think there’s anything golden-age-y happening there. Rather, it seems that our professional norms — very notably, that you cannot just start spinning yarn, but have to cite, engage, and interpret who came before you — and the constant exchange with our peers that we enjoy in the academy really do something to improve what we end up putting to paper.)
this is so thoughtful, thanks for it.
I would also like to point out that in the case of philosophy it is not clear where the difference between academic and popular philosophy lies, and that’s at least a part of the problem. Arguably, the difference between real science and pseudo – scientific nonsense it more clearly definable.
“P(A|B) = [P(A)*P(B|A)]/P(B), all the rest is commentary.”
The power and limitations of analogical thinking.
If you’re curious about the world and how it works, science can take you only so far. There are so many more questions that data and experiments cannot answer, at least not yet.
Philosophy helps to fill that gap. You can think of it as pre-science or proto-science.
Once we’ve developed the tools and methods to answer those questions empirically, the questions simply move from the philosophy bucket into the science bucket.
For instance, “what is the world made of?” used to be a philosophy question; Democritus and others, thousands of years ago, argued that they were made of “atoms”, before anyone could empirically confirm or support that hypothesis. “Where do babies come from?” used to be a philosophy question; science disproved the popular hypothesis that people grew from homunculi.
Maybe someday we can empirically test whether we have free will, or if computers can be conscious, whether we live in a simulation, does God exist, or other unsettled questions. At that point, they transform into science questions, but until then, they’re still philosophical questions. (Some questions might be unanswerable by data/experiments in principle, such as questions about value, ethics, aesthetics, etc., and that’s ok.)
If you’re not curious about the world or don’t care to make full use of your unique brain—the thing that makes you human and unlike everything else in the known universe— then philosophy probably isn’t for you. As a great American philosopher once said, “the world needs ditch-diggers, too”…
Joke answer: An intimate knowledge of the historical conditions surrounding the divergence of Husserlian phenomenology and Fregean logical analysis from one another, and a familiarity with the methodological distinctions between the dual traditions that developed therefrom.
Serious answer: A healthy skepticism about received wisdom.
Precision matters.
Even one’s metaphilosophical assumptions are philosophical issues in need of philosophical inquiry.
So many students and non-philosophers *think* they know what philosophy is about (mere speculative opinion), its limitations (mere speculative opinion), etc.
Of course, this is true of philosophers, too. I’m not trying to draw any sharp boundaries, but it was world philosophy day after all!
A completely pointless undertaking. You either have it or you don’t. I mean – a love of philosophy, not the real thing. You have to study it. And if you love philosophy, you study philosophy. And if you don’t study philosophy, then you’re not interested in philosophy and you don’t understand anything about philosophy. You can also study philosophy as an autodidact. But that’s pretty rare. I wish everyone who is interested in philosophy that they never meet anyone who wants to interest them in philosophy. Because then it might seem to them that their interest in philosophy is something that first needs to be awakened. But that is not true. Every philosopher is born a philosopher. It’s better to let them grow up in peace.
I think the value of philosophy is in making us become of aware of presuppositions we’ve been used to living with.
All empirical data underdetermine which claims are true. For example, it’s technically consistent with all empirical data that the world was created five minutes ago, that I’m a brain in a vat, that other minds don’t exist, etc. So we need to assiduously study extra-empirical criteria of theory-choice. A better understanding of such criteria helps combat wild conspiracy thinking and naive scientism, and it can also provide (somewhat) common ground for individuals of differing religious, political, moral, etc. worldviews to assess one another’s thinking.
This is a well discussed bad argument. Empirical data underdetermine theory choice if deductive entailment is the only tool at one’s disposal. But if one allows induction or inference to the best explanation (and why shouldn’t one?), then the empirical data determines pretty convincingly that the world was not created 5 minutes ago, there are other minds, and so on. This point has been made over and over since the very beginning of the underdetermination literature. There are of course still questions about underdetermination, but not the ones just suggested.
Yes, this is a good point! I appreciate your making it. And I agree with what you’re saying. By “underdetermination”, I just meant “underdetermination by logical deduction”, as opposed to underdetermination by any evidential method whatsoever (e.g. inference to best explanation). In other words, my basic point was that philosophy teaches us to think carefully about non-deductive or ampliative criteria of evidential determination, if that’s a better way to put it.
No, it just kicks the can slightly further down the road. Now we need to talk about what makes an explanation “best,” which is contentious. And what is an “explanation” anyways? On some plausible enough answers to these further questions, empirical data may well still underdetermine whether the world was created more than five minutes ago and so on.
The main value of philosophy for those who don’t have the disposition to obsess about is to recognize how different people can rationally disagree, even if you are not a theist, you should understand the arguments for theism, even if you are a theist you should understand why people are atheist and neither are ispo facto dumb shits. just one example
When I meet students, even ones who have been out of school for a number of years, they often tell me studying philosophy improved their lives. The reasons they give are often different (and I don’t remember all of them) but they seem to be roughly
1) They understand themselves better than they did before.
2) They understand the world/society/other people better than they did before.
3) They apply this understanding, and it benefits them.
Philosophy isn’t seen as practical or applicable but those who study it seem to find it so. They’ve said they’ve use it all the time, in many different situations–from going to war to investment planning to working in a mental hospital. I’m not entirely sure what it was about studying philosophy that produces this result or whether other subjects also have this benefit. (My guess is that they do.) I’m glad this question was asked so I can find out a bit more why they think studying philosophy worked out for them the next time a student tells me this.
Please forgive if i have butchered the latin spelling. I believe my one major gift or take away as you say of philosopy wouldst be… “ego ergo sum” i think therefor i am. With this there is no reason to be. If one can not or chooses not to be then why even be. ‘That one good viking’ L. E. Seward JR.
The purpose of philosophy is to guide men upward toward realizing their True identity.
The lesson I would pass on is that an understanding of philosophy depends on acquiring a grasp of the principle of non-duality and its ramifications. Without this we will be unable to make sense of the subject and, therefore, will struggle to convince anyone of the value of studying it.