Why Study Philosophy?

What does philosophy actually do?

Physicists study matter, motion, and energy. Chemists study substances and their forms of combination, interaction and decomposition. Biologists study living things. And so forth. But what is it that philosophers study? One answer common throughout the ages is that as physicists study physics, philosophers study meta-physics. Philosophers, or at any rate the deepest of philosophers, we are told, are meta-physicists. Physicists study the contingencies of the world – things that happen to be so. Meta-physicists study the essential, necessary features of all possible worlds.

This reply is unconvincing for a number of reasons. For one thing, if it were the case, it would need a great deal of explaining to vindicate philosophy. For while physics has produced libraries of well established results (and chemistry and biology yet more libraries), we can look in vain for trustworthy books entitled Established Truths of Metaphysics or A Handbook of Philosophical Facts.


Moreover, there is more than an air of absurdity to the thought that chemists discover that water consists of H2O, and that philosophers then discover that this is not a contingent truth, but a necessary one; or that physicists discover that E=mc2, and meta-physicists then discover that this is true in all possible worlds.

Finally, if we look at the kinds of results that meta-physicists do produce, it is evident that they are little more than paradox (time is unreal; solid objects are not really solid; coloured objects are not really coloured), absurdity (we cannot know the thoughts or intentions of another; we are nothing more than a bundle of perceptions) and systematically contested to boot (there are or are not universals; moral truths are all absolute or all relative). So let us discard this foolishness.

Metaphysics is an illusion that besets philosophers (and philosophically-minded scientists) from generation to generation, which it is the task of good philosophy to dispel. But although periodic fumigation is recurrently necessary for intellectual health, what else is there for philosophy to do? What can it achieve? In the sense in which the sciences have a subject matter, it seems, philosophy has none. In the sense in which the sciences construct theories that are confirmed or infirmed by experiment or observation, there are obviously no theories in philosophy. In the sense in which the sciences make discoveries about the world around us, philosophy clearly does not. So what is its task?

We must challenge the thought that philosophy aims to contribute to human knowledge of the world. Its task is to resolve philosophical problems. The characteristic feature of philosophical problems is their non-empirical, a priori character: no scientific experiment can settle the question of whether the mind is the brain, what the meaning of a word is, whether human beings are responsible for their deeds (i.e. have free will), whether trees falling on uninhabited desert islands make any noise, what makes necessary truths necessary. All these, and many hundreds more, are conceptual questions. They are not questions about concepts (philosophy is not a science of concepts). But they are questions that are to be answered, resolved or dissolved by careful scrutiny of the concepts involved.

The only way to scrutinise concepts is to examine the use of the words that express them. Conceptual investigations are investigations into what makes sense and what does not. And, of course, questions of sense precede questions of empirical truth – for if something makes no sense, it can be neither true nor false. It is just nonsense – not silly, but rather: it transgresses the bounds of sense. Philosophy patrols the borders between sense and nonsense; science determines what is empirically true and what is empirically false. What falsehood is for science, nonsense is for philosophy.

Let me give you a simple example or two. When psychologists and cognitive scientists say that it is your brain that thinks rather than nodding your head and saying, “How interesting! What an important discovery!”, you should pause to wonder what this means. What, you might then ask, is a thoughtful brain, and what is a thoughtless one?

Can my brain concentrate on what I am doing, or does it just concentrate on what it is doing? Does my brain hold political opinions? Is it, as Gilbert and Sullivan might ask, a little Conservative or a little Liberal? Can it be opinionated? Narrow-minded? What on earth would an opinionated and narrow-minded brain be? Just ask yourself: if it is your brain that thinks, how does your brain tell you what it thinks? And can you disagree with it? And if you do, how do you tell it that it is mistaken, that what it thinks is false? And can your brain understand what you say to it? Can it speak English? If you continue this line of questioning you will come to realise that the very idea that the brain thinks makes no sense. But, of course, to show why it makes no sense requires a great deal more work.


Another example. There is a letter once attributed to Mozart in which he wrote that sometimes, when in the fever of creativity, he could hear the whole concerto that he was composing in a flash – all he then had to do was to write it down. On hearing this tale, you may nod your head wisely and think: “what an amazing genius! How could he possibly do such a thing?”

Roger Penrose, a distinguished scientist and mathematician, reflecting on the same letter, thought that we shall only be able to understand this remarkable phenomenon when we have an adequate theory of quantum gravity and a better understanding of time. “Ah,” you may think, “how true! How amazing!”

But you should pause, not to wonder whether what Mozart allegedly said is true, nor to wonder how he could do something so amazing, but to wonder whether this form of words means anything at all. After all, if he could hear the whole concerto in his imagination in a flash, all he would have imagined hearing was a crashing chord, not a concerto! In fact, the famous letter is a forgery. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the only sense that can be given to the phrase “hearing the concerto in one’s imagination in a flash” is that it means that he suddenly realised that he knew how to complete the concerto he was writing, not that he had already completed it in his imagination. The sudden dawning of an ability is not the same as its high-speed exercise, and to have a Eureka experience is not to rehearse the whole solution to a problem in a flash, but to know that one can rehearse the whole solution, on request, at normal speed.

So, why study philosophy?

There are many reasons, and many different kinds of reason. At a very general level, it is a unique technique for tackling conceptual questions that occur to most thinking people: questions concerning the existence of God, of an afterlife, and of free will. Also questions concerning human nature: what is the mind? How is the mind related to the body? Do we have a soul?


For although these look as if they are factual questions, they are not. They are purely conceptual questions that are to be resolved by conceptual inquiry. Philosophy also gives us techniques for handling fundamental methodological problems concerning explanations of human behaviour: what is the difference between being caused to do something, being made to do something, and acting for a reason? These in turn are pivotal for understanding the rights and wrongs of allocating responsibility. And philosophy is the sole subject that confronts questions about how we ought to live, what kind of society we ought to aspire to, and what system of laws befits rational beings living under the rule of law.

At a more specialised level, philosophy is a technique for examining the results of specific sciences for their conceptual coherence, and for examining the explanatory methods of the different sciences – natural, social and human. The sciences are no more immune to conceptual confusion than is any other branch of human thought. Scientists themselves are for the most part ill-equipped to deal with conceptual confusions.

One great task of philosophy is to function as a Tribunal of Sense before which scientists may be arraigned when they transgress the bounds of sense. For when a neuroscientist tells us that the mind is the brain or that thinking is a neural process; when an economist tells us that to act rationally is to pursue one’s desire-satisfaction, or that human felicity is the maximization of utility; when a psychologist claims that autism is the consequence of the neonates’ failure to develop a theory of mind, then we need philosophy to constrain science run amok.

The history of philosophy is a capital part of the history of ideas. To study the history of philosophy is to study an aspect of the intellectual life of past societies, and of our own society in the past. It makes a crucial contribution to the understanding of the history of past European societies. Equally, to understand our contemporary forms of thought, the ways in which we look at things, the study of the history of philosophy is essential. For we cannot know where we are, unless we understand how we got here.

The study of philosophy cultivates a healthy scepticism about the moral opinions, political arguments and economic reasonings with which we are daily bombarded by ideologues, churchmen, politicians and economists. It teaches one to detect ‘higher forms of nonsense’, to identify humbug, to weed out hypocrisy, and to spot invalid reasoning. It curbs our taste for nonsense, and gives us a nose for it instead. It teaches us not to rush to affirm or deny assertions, but to raise questions about them.

Even more importantly, it teaches us to raise questions about questions, to probe for their tacit assumptions and presuppositions, and to challenge these when warranted. In this way it gives us a distance from passion-provoking issues – a degree of detachment that is conducive to reason and reasonableness.

Latest Releases
Join the conversation

Lunwen Help 7 April 2023

任何物理作业,任何学术水平,任何作业类型,我们都能帮您解决。最高质量的物理学作业代写,服务覆盖美国上千所大学,包括综合大学、社区大学等等,无论什么样的作业难题,我们都能帮你解决! wechat:allen52116

Alysha Cervantes 22 November 2022

Writing a persuasive essay is not easy. It is not a simple task, and it takes time and effort to write an effective essay.
PJCOURSE
You need to be able to write an introduction that grabs the attention of your audience. You need to have an argument that is strong enough to convince them. And you need to be able to put all of these elements together in order to make a persuasive essay that has the potential to change minds.

jenis smith 18 December 2021

The education is necessary because through this you become an expert and get acknowledge about different important aspects. DumpsCafe products contain information that has been extracted from authentic and reliable sources. Dumpscafe dumps pdf offers you updated knowledge about all the contents of the syllabus and will enable you to pass it with flying colors. If you need to go through the entire syllabus and learn each and every topic, choose our Study Guides that equip you with the best knowledge.

koike daniel 1 December 2021

你是否在最后写毕业论文的时候, 因为毕业论文Results的写作而烦恼呢, 到了这一步的时候, 往往都需要从头再看一遍自己写的内容, 这样才能确保自己写的毕业论文Results准确无误, 但是很多学生写的内容很多, 如果从来看一遍, 那么将会浪费很多时间. 那么这时候, EssayMin英国论文网就能够为你提供毕业论文Results代写服务. 但是想必很多学生都会担心这不是一个合法的服务. 但是这里EssayMin可以明确地告诉你, EssayMin于2006年成立在伦敦, 是一个正式注册的平台, 同时提供的代写服务也不受任何大学/学院的禁止. 赶紧来EssayMin英国论文网订购毕业论文Results代写吧!

Jack Cin 24 November 2021

The study of philosophy enhances your ability to evaluate and resolve problems. It will help you to analyze concepts, definitions, arguments, and problems. It contributes to your capacity to organize ideas and issues, to deal with questions of value, and to extract what is essential from masses of information.

koike daniel 5 November 2021

Critical Review refers to Critical thinking, and its writing is slightly more difficult than other papers in any aspect, so many international students will choose to find Critical Review ghostwriting services. EssayMin UK paper network is the primary choice for Critical Review ghostwriters, because the price of EssayMin is close to the people, the price is within the affordable range of international students. In addition, users can communicate with tutors at any time if they have any requirements for Critical Review writing. Tutors will write strictly in accordance with the requirements of users. The whole thesis writing progress, users can view in their own background system,is absolutely open and transparent. EssayMin will provide you with unlimited corrections within 14 days if you are not satisfied with your Critical Review.

jackson berg 28 August 2021

If you want to be a successful person in your IT career, hurry up and take the certification exams by preparing dumps mate HPE6-A70 ARUBA exam. Our dumps will boost your confidence in your real exams. https://www.dumpscollection.com/HPE6-A70-exam.html It will develop your hands-on experience in real exam. So, it will be very useful for you to take practice exams and prepare for your real exam.

lifeso4029 goqoez 15 July 2021

Philosophy allows us to understand not only social, collective responsibility, and our moral responsibility to ourselves. In addition, this science helps me write more unique essays, which I always check for anti-plagiarism https://researchpapers.io/plagiarism-checker/ before submitting. Anti-plagiarism is used by teachers to control students in educational institutions, as well as students in order to know in advance whether the work they have written will pass or not. Often, students try to bypass anti-plagiarism to increase the uniqueness of the text so that their scientific work shows a high percentage in the program.

foihuhvcnfst foihuhvcnfst 7 May 2021

hello

Dima Santarskyi 12 April 2021

In Canada, Canadian cs code https://www.academicsaviour.com/jia-na-da-cs-dai-xie undergraduate study methods are: computer science, software engineering, computer engineering and electronic engineering. The content of these four courses overlaps with the employment direction after graduation: software engineering focuses on software development, computer science focuses on software, computer engineering focuses on hardware, and electronic engineering focuses on hardware. According to relevant Canadian laws and regulations, occupations focusing on engineering applications are supervised by the Institution of Engineers and must hold a valid registration license in accordance with the law. The assessment, certification, and management of the siege lion are the responsibility of the provincial engineer associations. The employment situation of Canadian computer professionals is generally good, and there is a great demand for talents in the market. After taking the job, the salary is high, which belongs to the profession of high-tech salary in the society. According to statistics provided by Statistics Canada, the average starting salary for computer graduates is $72,000.

Jeff Thorsen 16 March 2021

Philosophy helps us to develop. I love it. The only difficulty for me was writing essays on this topic. It seems that I understand everything, but I don’t know how to put it in a logical chain. That’s why I found the site OnlineWritersRating https://onlinewritersrating.com/ and tried to finalize it to normal view. All the same, you need talent in writing. I love to read, but I can't write.

David Matta 31 December 2019

Science obsesses about outcomes, philosophy about entry points.

Kyle Urm 19 February 2018

How come when I try study philosophy you 'regret to inform me' that im too dumb???????

Abraham Joseph 20 July 2017

"At a more specialised level, philosophy is a technique for examining the results of specific sciences for their conceptual coherence, and for examining the explanatory methods of the different sciences – natural, social and human. The sciences are no more immune to conceptual confusion than is any other branch of human thought. Scientists themselves are for the most part ill-equipped to deal with conceptual confusions"

Above is a very reasonable answer as to why Philosophy is important.

But it is better we ( philosophers) offer more specific answers, as to why our field is more central and fundamental than that of Science. Kindly also see my reply Tweet on this subject; Science left TRUTH search when she had settled for 'objective reality'.But we are still continuing it, as we think, TRUTH is beyond 'objectivity': I invite your attention to a peer reviewed paper I submitted to the International Society for Universal Dialogue, a prestigious Philosophers body based at Greece: http://argumentsagainstscientificpositivism.blogspot.in/2014/05/thescientific-explanation-of-reality.html

Yes; 'Science is now only a jihadist dogma, that the whole is physical'. She has committed herself to this UNIVERSAL PREMISE. We must realize the power of a Universal premise in Logic and reasoning.; Logic is simply a series of statements trying to be 'consistent' with the UNIVERSAL premise one keeps.I would like to share with you a brief blog-post on this particular limitation of Logic. It is not any magic-wand:http://thesparkleofhumanreason.blogspot.in/2016/07/why-our-understanding-of-logic-needs.html

Now, coming back to why Philosophy should enjoy her mother of all knowledge status. We have seen, that science has degenerated into a jihadist Dogma about the 'physical' nature of reality, though she has no conclusive explanation as to what is physical!

Will you share the following very detailed paper, as to why Science was depended on an yet unverified FACULTY of mind to ascertain the "CERTAINTY' of her conclusions? Please study the following link with all seriousness, and you will understand it:http://philosopherskorner.blogspot.in/

The above-provided link might help top philosophers, why the role of philosophy is NOT subsidiary to Science or any other field of science! The link is not a fantasy idea of an unknown person; it is a long thought, meditated and 'revealed', sensed ( with the newly introduced sense organ) fact about human inferences! Yes, man indeed has yet unrecognized internal sense-faculties that helps him to 'sense' order from disorder!!

If you are convinced, being a reputed man of philosophy, please let it brought to the attention of Academy fraternity in your country, so that, once for all, the tussle between Science and Philosophy will end!. Science, like its various divisions and fields, only one of the branch of seeking KNOWLEDGE. But philosophy will continue to be the QUEEN of knowledge ever.

Ian Wardell 24 April 2017

Why the heck are you comparing philosophy to Physics?? Why not compare it to any other subject instead?? The value of phislophy is illustrated when we consider the preposterous statements that the likes of hawking et al make.

Petar Pajević 31 May 2014

I must respectfully disagree.

It is not always that we find mere conceptual analysis to be the whole of 'good philosophy'. Certainly, conceptual analysis is important (ex: what in the world is a concept?), but often methodological approaches define what concept is at play.

Our concepts aren't always best suited to inquiry and understanding. When we have analysed and explained what the concepts at play are, we are left at an impasse: we find that our concepts of reality (for an arbitrary example) are not in accord. This here is the end of analysis. We are now able to 'agree to disagree', but we aren't able to establish which concept is the better one to use. Certainly we wish to say that reality is not a bundle of sensations, yet analysis will only reveal that we think it isn't and our interlocutor thinks it is. As we move into the realm of claiming that they are mistaken, we have already left the realm of analysis and move into argumentation.

Are we suggesting a slight change in what our interlocutor means by 'reality'?-No. We are claiming that their view of the world is mistaken,and should they take our suggestion their approach to roughly everything will have to shift. We might say that 'this way of acting accords more with that', and use that as a claim that our way is better. What is this if not a claim of inconsistency between some claims in their approach? We might accept a methodological approach they put forward for the sake of argument, and derive a contradiction. What is this other than a reductio of their methodology? And should they agree that their methodology is flawed, their concepts will shift, and hopefully shift closer to our own.

In this way, the discussion on the difference of concepts comes down to a choice of methodologies.

Weaknesses: Vagueness of concept.
Strength: Claims that methodological approaches determine concepts, that analysis of concepts does not choose between competing methodological definitions.

T MM 9 February 2014

As they become much older, perhaps a philosophy course, utilizing the platonic process, might be suitable. That is, by rhetorical questioning, working one's way into a subject, even when little is known of the subject.

Niaz Butt 30 January 2014

I agree with the writer about philosophe's contributions towards expanion of man's understanding about concepts and help in clearance of confusions in this regard.i think there is a difference between studying philosophy and developing a phlosophical and contemplative attitude towards issues which force themselves to our attention.I think besides having a grounding in philosophy and literature we also need exposure to other disciplines.

Michael Ahles 25 January 2014

The science of physics is the measure of nature, a nature found truly of philosophically to be immeasurable. Truth is. =