Amy Cools reminds us why science needs philosophy.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/109/Sc ... Friendship
Science & Philosophy: A Beautiful Friendship
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Re: Science & Philosophy: A Beautiful Friendship
This articles talks about the paradoxical relationship between science and philosophy. It also talks about the paradoxical relationship between the individual and society.
But is also says, to quote Edward O. Wilson from his book Consilience , that for best results, cultivate individuals, not groups. I am wondering then, what should be cultivated first, science or philosophy? I am thinking science, because science supplies the original sin (although philosophy committed the original sin by giving birth to science) and more grist for the mill than philosophy.
But is also says, to quote Edward O. Wilson from his book Consilience , that for best results, cultivate individuals, not groups. I am wondering then, what should be cultivated first, science or philosophy? I am thinking science, because science supplies the original sin (although philosophy committed the original sin by giving birth to science) and more grist for the mill than philosophy.
Reciprocity from philosophy is required Re: Science & Philosophy: A Beautiful Friendship
Amy, I fully support philosophy and science being partners.
However, reciprocity is the key to productive relationships. So conversely, science is there to provide a much needed naturalistic grounding for philosophy, including moral philosophy. I see mainstream moral philosophy as guilty of ignoring science as irrelevant and even being contemptuous of work in the science of morality in particular.
Indeed, calls by Krauss, Tyson, Hawking, and others as you mention for morality to be handed over to science for a time have been motivated by what I see as good reasons. These include no truth confirming ability in moral philosophy comparable to that in science and the naïve contempt shown by some (but not all) mainstream moral philosophers for the science of morality indicating, to the scientists, a perverse, willful ignorance.
My own complaints against moral philosophers are that, as a group, they have essentially ignored two paradigm shifting implications from the science of morality as assembled over the last forty years or so.
First, science has revealed the limited scope of the category of moral behaviors as natural phenomena. A naturalistic definition of descriptively moral behaviors is behaviors motivated by our moral sense and advocated by past and present moral codes. Science shows that these descriptively moral and superficially diverse, contradictory, and bizarre behaviors are actually all elements of cooperation strategies. Science has thus answered the question “What is the function, the primary reason they exist, of descriptively moral behaviors?” with a verifiable truth claim.
Compare this answerable question to the apparently unanswerable questions moral philosophers prefer to expend their talents on “What ought our ultimate goals be?”, “How ought I live?”, and “What are my obligations?” (the questions utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and Kantianism purport to answer.) These questions are about subjects that can be important to human flourishing, but to the extent they are not about cooperation strategies they are guilty of making a category error if they are purported to define morality.
Sure, moral philosophers are free to define “morality” however they wish. But if moral philosophers understood descriptively moral behaviors as natural phenomena, they could separate their study of ethics into claims about the function of moral codes and our moral sense (‘is’ claims science can answer) and the ‘ought’ claims that may have no definitive answers.
Second, moral philosophy is ignoring the paradigm shifting implications of a universal moral principle hidden amongst the superficial chaos of descriptively moral behavior. Specifically, the following moral principle appears to be universal both empirically and based on theoretical reasons: “Behaviors that sustainably increase the benefits of cooperation without exploitation are universally moral.”
If this principle is universal, then it is the universal moral principle that would be put forward by all well-informed, rational people. If it is put forward by all rational people, it will be culturally useful for all rational disputes concerning moral norms and in formulating moral codes. Since it is useful in rationally settling moral disputes and formulating moral codes, it is normative.
The paradigm shift for moral philosophy when they recognize this moral universal is that universality provides a science based path to normativity, that is independent of any ought claims. So there are actually two paths to normativity for a moral principle. If we can show it is universally moral, it is automatically normative in the sense of being useful for rationally settling moral disputes and formulating moral codes. But if it is shown not to be universally moral, such as utilitarianism, virtue ethics, or Kantianism, then it’s normativity must be based on the traditional approach, showing it is somehow what we ‘ought’ to do regardless of our needs and preferences – which has to date been impossible to show and may forever continue to be impossible.
In summary, my complaints against moral philosophers are that, in general, they 1) persist in making a category error concerning what moral behavior ‘is’ – cooperation strategies, 2) fail to recognize the normative implications of universal moral principles hiding in amongst the superficial chaos of those descriptively moral cooperation strategies, and 3) fail to recognize the importance to cultural utility of recognizing a naturalistic grounding of morality.
That said, I remain hopeful we are at the beginning of a new age of moral enlightenment. We will get there fastest with mutually respectful cooperation between moral philosophy and the science of morality. But if moral philosophy remains intransigently refusing to take into account implications from the science of morality, then science will get there on its own. And people formulating moral codes will look to science for morality’s broad outlines as elements of sustainable, non-exploitative cooperation strategies, and to moral philosophy for guidance only where that science goes necessarily silent regarding ultimate goals and ultimate ‘oughts’.
However, reciprocity is the key to productive relationships. So conversely, science is there to provide a much needed naturalistic grounding for philosophy, including moral philosophy. I see mainstream moral philosophy as guilty of ignoring science as irrelevant and even being contemptuous of work in the science of morality in particular.
Indeed, calls by Krauss, Tyson, Hawking, and others as you mention for morality to be handed over to science for a time have been motivated by what I see as good reasons. These include no truth confirming ability in moral philosophy comparable to that in science and the naïve contempt shown by some (but not all) mainstream moral philosophers for the science of morality indicating, to the scientists, a perverse, willful ignorance.
My own complaints against moral philosophers are that, as a group, they have essentially ignored two paradigm shifting implications from the science of morality as assembled over the last forty years or so.
First, science has revealed the limited scope of the category of moral behaviors as natural phenomena. A naturalistic definition of descriptively moral behaviors is behaviors motivated by our moral sense and advocated by past and present moral codes. Science shows that these descriptively moral and superficially diverse, contradictory, and bizarre behaviors are actually all elements of cooperation strategies. Science has thus answered the question “What is the function, the primary reason they exist, of descriptively moral behaviors?” with a verifiable truth claim.
Compare this answerable question to the apparently unanswerable questions moral philosophers prefer to expend their talents on “What ought our ultimate goals be?”, “How ought I live?”, and “What are my obligations?” (the questions utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and Kantianism purport to answer.) These questions are about subjects that can be important to human flourishing, but to the extent they are not about cooperation strategies they are guilty of making a category error if they are purported to define morality.
Sure, moral philosophers are free to define “morality” however they wish. But if moral philosophers understood descriptively moral behaviors as natural phenomena, they could separate their study of ethics into claims about the function of moral codes and our moral sense (‘is’ claims science can answer) and the ‘ought’ claims that may have no definitive answers.
Second, moral philosophy is ignoring the paradigm shifting implications of a universal moral principle hidden amongst the superficial chaos of descriptively moral behavior. Specifically, the following moral principle appears to be universal both empirically and based on theoretical reasons: “Behaviors that sustainably increase the benefits of cooperation without exploitation are universally moral.”
If this principle is universal, then it is the universal moral principle that would be put forward by all well-informed, rational people. If it is put forward by all rational people, it will be culturally useful for all rational disputes concerning moral norms and in formulating moral codes. Since it is useful in rationally settling moral disputes and formulating moral codes, it is normative.
The paradigm shift for moral philosophy when they recognize this moral universal is that universality provides a science based path to normativity, that is independent of any ought claims. So there are actually two paths to normativity for a moral principle. If we can show it is universally moral, it is automatically normative in the sense of being useful for rationally settling moral disputes and formulating moral codes. But if it is shown not to be universally moral, such as utilitarianism, virtue ethics, or Kantianism, then it’s normativity must be based on the traditional approach, showing it is somehow what we ‘ought’ to do regardless of our needs and preferences – which has to date been impossible to show and may forever continue to be impossible.
In summary, my complaints against moral philosophers are that, in general, they 1) persist in making a category error concerning what moral behavior ‘is’ – cooperation strategies, 2) fail to recognize the normative implications of universal moral principles hiding in amongst the superficial chaos of those descriptively moral cooperation strategies, and 3) fail to recognize the importance to cultural utility of recognizing a naturalistic grounding of morality.
That said, I remain hopeful we are at the beginning of a new age of moral enlightenment. We will get there fastest with mutually respectful cooperation between moral philosophy and the science of morality. But if moral philosophy remains intransigently refusing to take into account implications from the science of morality, then science will get there on its own. And people formulating moral codes will look to science for morality’s broad outlines as elements of sustainable, non-exploitative cooperation strategies, and to moral philosophy for guidance only where that science goes necessarily silent regarding ultimate goals and ultimate ‘oughts’.
Re: Science & Philosophy: A Beautiful Friendship
First know that I am kind of easing back into my process (that is after a week’s vacation and a stomach ailment I’m getting over (and my thoughts right now are varied and vague. It’s like I have several lines of thought converging (some of which are responses to articles I’ve read in the recent Philosophy Now (and that are not forming into a coherent harmonious whole. So if I seem to be meandering or completely incoherent…. well!
“A famous example of leaping too quickly from the ‘is’ to the ‘ought’– or in other words, deriving an ethical system too quickly from a scientific discovery – is eugenics. Many Victorian-era scientists and philosophers were so enthusiastic about the thrilling new scientific theory of natural selection that they thought it could be applied to everything. So just as it’s a fact that based on the ability to thrive in its environment, nature selects for or against individual organisms, these thinkers thought that human beings should also act as arbiters of fitness. Thus from the late Nineteenth Century to the middle of the Twentieth, many scientists thought that the human species should be ‘perfected’ through the judicious selection of traits to pass on to future generations. In other words, they thought they should select against those individuals possessed of supposedly ‘undesirable’ qualities – ‘selection’ in this case meaning sterilizing or killing.” –from Amy Cool’s article, Science & Philosophy: A Beautiful Friendship (issue 109)
Now given the title, it is obvious that the main point of the article is a defense of philosophy in the face of science’s smug dismissal of it. As Marc Champagne points out in his article Analytic Philosophy, Continental Literature?:
“American philosopher Brian Leiter, for instance, writes on his popular blog that he is “genuinely hopeful that over the next generation Party Line Continentalists will be exiled entirely to literature departments.”
And I would assume the scientific community (by which I mean those members who dismiss philosophy (holds the same sentiment.
And I cannot help but feel that the two oppositions to the continental/literary approach to philosophy are connected in their submission to producer/consumer Capitalism (via corporate financing of universities (or what Deleuze and Guattarri referred to as state philosophies. Both dismissals stink of Capitalist values not only in their willingness to bend to the tyranny of the functional (I mean what does the analytic approach amount to but philosophy’s guilt at its inability to create an i-pod (and their enthusiasm about turning understanding into some kind of hierarchy, but the kind of in-crowd mentality, Capitalism’s tendency to turn everything into a players game that, at an anything but objective level, underwrites the smug dismissal of anything that opposes the privilege it gives it itself through a circular argument brought up by Champagne:
“Analytic philosophers have often been reproached for the remoteness of their technical craft, but somewhere along the way they have figured out that if they band together tightly enough, their way of perceiving philosophy can be impermeable to such external criticisms. Philosophers are suspicious of circularity in arguments (we consider it a fallacy, in fact), but we should be suspicious of institutional circularity too. Thus, without checks and balances from the outside (or a dose of open-minded humility on their own behalf), for philosophers fixated on displaying appropriate markers, their self-serving idea of professionalism can easily create “a self-perpetuating clique, like freemasons” (Jonathan Rée, Radical Philosophy #1, 1972).”
A point he had reinforced via Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions:
“It is always other professionals who decide who counts as a professional. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn stressed the role that such clubbishness plays in ensuring the cohesion of disciplines (in his study it was scientific disciplines, but the point may be applied generally). Through his distinction between ‘normal’ and ‘revolutionary’ science, Kuhn showed that there are long interludes when communities of scientists are committed to not questioning their shared core assumptions.
The analytic philosophers at Kuhn’s university largely dismissed him as a philosophical lightweight: when he applied for tenure, they relegated him to a history department. I nevertheless think Kuhn’s ideas have had a lasting impact on how the analytic tradition sees itself. Indeed, in a Kuhnian manner, between short-lived episodes of turmoil, are lengthy periods where the philosophical status quo reigns supreme and rival proposals are debarred outright. And further, in the hands of analytic philosophers, who see their central goal as the piecemeal clarification of linguistic confusions, Kuhn’s notion of a paradigm of shared core assumptions can vindicate their assertion of the special value of their goal and its method.”
He further points out:
“Yet as Hans-Johann Glock writes in his book What is Analytic Philosophy? (2008), “just as theists should not be allowed to define God into existence, analytical philosophers should not be allowed to define themselves into excellence.”
Once again: STATE PHILOSOPHY: that which does not so much help the condition of humankind as act as expression of the power and glory of the status quo. (And I would refer here to Robert Michael Ruehl’s In Defense of Alain Badiou, a response to James Alexander’s neo-classicist dismissal Badiou in ‘A Refutation of Snails by Roast Beef’.) And to get to what a total failure of intellectual inquiry such smug dismissals are, I would quote a random thought I had:
“America is engaging in a fascist experiment: we are creating a situation in which people should fail (think ghettos: the concentration camps (and jailing them when they do. We do the same with the 45,000 people a year who die from lack of access to healthcare. Of course, we white males should not concern ourselves with this since it won't happen to us or anyone close to us. Still: it could be us.”
Such smug dismissals of any contribution to the discourse can only prop this up –support it. For instance: how do you pose the subjective, but very real, experiences of the poor against the hard hard data of the scientific?
*
Now I want to return to an earlier point by Cool and do a reversal based on the Social Darwinism at work here:
“A famous example of leaping too quickly from the ‘is’ to the ‘ought’– or in other words, deriving an ethical system too quickly from a scientific discovery – is eugenics. Many Victorian-era scientists and philosophers were so enthusiastic about the thrilling new scientific theory of natural selection that they thought it could be applied to everything. So just as it’s a fact that based on the ability to thrive in its environment, nature selects for or against individual organisms, these thinkers thought that human beings should also act as arbiters of fitness. Thus from the late Nineteenth Century to the middle of the Twentieth, many scientists thought that the human species should be ‘perfected’ through the judicious selection of traits to pass on to future generations. In other words, they thought they should select against those individuals possessed of supposedly ‘undesirable’ qualities – ‘selection’ in this case meaning sterilizing or killing.” –from Amy Cool’s article, Science & Philosophy: A Beautiful Friendship (issue 109)
Now let’s start with the recognition that we do not need the scientific method to recognize that eugenics is just wrong. And then let us recognize that those who embraced eugenics, and the underlying Social Darwinism, are those who do so for perfectly unscientific reasons: they are people in positions of privilege who were mainly concerned with protecting their position. And we pretty much see the same dynamic at work today. And that includes the analytics and scientists who are basking in the glory of Capitalism. I mean I would assume that scientists are making more than most philosophers since they can produce an i-pod.
But let’s look at what evolution is actually about: the survival of a species –despite the fact that tends to work primarily on individuals. It seems to me that the members of our species that are least useful to our species are the rich. They don’t produce anything. They just put up the money. They don’t even consume in any meaningful way. They invest. But all the investment in the world means squat without someone to buy the product. In evolutionary terms, the rich (and their elite house slaves (are superfluous and a redundancy.
In other words, in evolutionary/social darwinistic terms, they are a genetic dead end that really doesn’t need to exist. Take on top of that they are the main reason we are racing towards self destruction through man-made climate change and they become little more than fat that must be trimmed from society in order for it to function properly and even survive.
It’s not the Mexicans or minorities or welfare queens who are the intruders. The rich, by the very terms of social Darwinism, are the problem. And Donald Trump, and those who support him, are the fallback of that genetic makeup.
“A famous example of leaping too quickly from the ‘is’ to the ‘ought’– or in other words, deriving an ethical system too quickly from a scientific discovery – is eugenics. Many Victorian-era scientists and philosophers were so enthusiastic about the thrilling new scientific theory of natural selection that they thought it could be applied to everything. So just as it’s a fact that based on the ability to thrive in its environment, nature selects for or against individual organisms, these thinkers thought that human beings should also act as arbiters of fitness. Thus from the late Nineteenth Century to the middle of the Twentieth, many scientists thought that the human species should be ‘perfected’ through the judicious selection of traits to pass on to future generations. In other words, they thought they should select against those individuals possessed of supposedly ‘undesirable’ qualities – ‘selection’ in this case meaning sterilizing or killing.” –from Amy Cool’s article, Science & Philosophy: A Beautiful Friendship (issue 109)
Now given the title, it is obvious that the main point of the article is a defense of philosophy in the face of science’s smug dismissal of it. As Marc Champagne points out in his article Analytic Philosophy, Continental Literature?:
“American philosopher Brian Leiter, for instance, writes on his popular blog that he is “genuinely hopeful that over the next generation Party Line Continentalists will be exiled entirely to literature departments.”
And I would assume the scientific community (by which I mean those members who dismiss philosophy (holds the same sentiment.
And I cannot help but feel that the two oppositions to the continental/literary approach to philosophy are connected in their submission to producer/consumer Capitalism (via corporate financing of universities (or what Deleuze and Guattarri referred to as state philosophies. Both dismissals stink of Capitalist values not only in their willingness to bend to the tyranny of the functional (I mean what does the analytic approach amount to but philosophy’s guilt at its inability to create an i-pod (and their enthusiasm about turning understanding into some kind of hierarchy, but the kind of in-crowd mentality, Capitalism’s tendency to turn everything into a players game that, at an anything but objective level, underwrites the smug dismissal of anything that opposes the privilege it gives it itself through a circular argument brought up by Champagne:
“Analytic philosophers have often been reproached for the remoteness of their technical craft, but somewhere along the way they have figured out that if they band together tightly enough, their way of perceiving philosophy can be impermeable to such external criticisms. Philosophers are suspicious of circularity in arguments (we consider it a fallacy, in fact), but we should be suspicious of institutional circularity too. Thus, without checks and balances from the outside (or a dose of open-minded humility on their own behalf), for philosophers fixated on displaying appropriate markers, their self-serving idea of professionalism can easily create “a self-perpetuating clique, like freemasons” (Jonathan Rée, Radical Philosophy #1, 1972).”
A point he had reinforced via Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions:
“It is always other professionals who decide who counts as a professional. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn stressed the role that such clubbishness plays in ensuring the cohesion of disciplines (in his study it was scientific disciplines, but the point may be applied generally). Through his distinction between ‘normal’ and ‘revolutionary’ science, Kuhn showed that there are long interludes when communities of scientists are committed to not questioning their shared core assumptions.
The analytic philosophers at Kuhn’s university largely dismissed him as a philosophical lightweight: when he applied for tenure, they relegated him to a history department. I nevertheless think Kuhn’s ideas have had a lasting impact on how the analytic tradition sees itself. Indeed, in a Kuhnian manner, between short-lived episodes of turmoil, are lengthy periods where the philosophical status quo reigns supreme and rival proposals are debarred outright. And further, in the hands of analytic philosophers, who see their central goal as the piecemeal clarification of linguistic confusions, Kuhn’s notion of a paradigm of shared core assumptions can vindicate their assertion of the special value of their goal and its method.”
He further points out:
“Yet as Hans-Johann Glock writes in his book What is Analytic Philosophy? (2008), “just as theists should not be allowed to define God into existence, analytical philosophers should not be allowed to define themselves into excellence.”
Once again: STATE PHILOSOPHY: that which does not so much help the condition of humankind as act as expression of the power and glory of the status quo. (And I would refer here to Robert Michael Ruehl’s In Defense of Alain Badiou, a response to James Alexander’s neo-classicist dismissal Badiou in ‘A Refutation of Snails by Roast Beef’.) And to get to what a total failure of intellectual inquiry such smug dismissals are, I would quote a random thought I had:
“America is engaging in a fascist experiment: we are creating a situation in which people should fail (think ghettos: the concentration camps (and jailing them when they do. We do the same with the 45,000 people a year who die from lack of access to healthcare. Of course, we white males should not concern ourselves with this since it won't happen to us or anyone close to us. Still: it could be us.”
Such smug dismissals of any contribution to the discourse can only prop this up –support it. For instance: how do you pose the subjective, but very real, experiences of the poor against the hard hard data of the scientific?
*
Now I want to return to an earlier point by Cool and do a reversal based on the Social Darwinism at work here:
“A famous example of leaping too quickly from the ‘is’ to the ‘ought’– or in other words, deriving an ethical system too quickly from a scientific discovery – is eugenics. Many Victorian-era scientists and philosophers were so enthusiastic about the thrilling new scientific theory of natural selection that they thought it could be applied to everything. So just as it’s a fact that based on the ability to thrive in its environment, nature selects for or against individual organisms, these thinkers thought that human beings should also act as arbiters of fitness. Thus from the late Nineteenth Century to the middle of the Twentieth, many scientists thought that the human species should be ‘perfected’ through the judicious selection of traits to pass on to future generations. In other words, they thought they should select against those individuals possessed of supposedly ‘undesirable’ qualities – ‘selection’ in this case meaning sterilizing or killing.” –from Amy Cool’s article, Science & Philosophy: A Beautiful Friendship (issue 109)
Now let’s start with the recognition that we do not need the scientific method to recognize that eugenics is just wrong. And then let us recognize that those who embraced eugenics, and the underlying Social Darwinism, are those who do so for perfectly unscientific reasons: they are people in positions of privilege who were mainly concerned with protecting their position. And we pretty much see the same dynamic at work today. And that includes the analytics and scientists who are basking in the glory of Capitalism. I mean I would assume that scientists are making more than most philosophers since they can produce an i-pod.
But let’s look at what evolution is actually about: the survival of a species –despite the fact that tends to work primarily on individuals. It seems to me that the members of our species that are least useful to our species are the rich. They don’t produce anything. They just put up the money. They don’t even consume in any meaningful way. They invest. But all the investment in the world means squat without someone to buy the product. In evolutionary terms, the rich (and their elite house slaves (are superfluous and a redundancy.
In other words, in evolutionary/social darwinistic terms, they are a genetic dead end that really doesn’t need to exist. Take on top of that they are the main reason we are racing towards self destruction through man-made climate change and they become little more than fat that must be trimmed from society in order for it to function properly and even survive.
It’s not the Mexicans or minorities or welfare queens who are the intruders. The rich, by the very terms of social Darwinism, are the problem. And Donald Trump, and those who support him, are the fallback of that genetic makeup.
Re: Science & Philosophy: A Beautiful Friendship
Can only read 1½ paragraph, but so far it seems like a delusional tard babbeling without being able to say anything specific how to implement philosophy into science.
Re: Science & Philosophy: A Beautiful Friendship
“Can only read 1½ paragraph, but so far it seems like a delusional tard babbeling without being able to say anything specific how to implement philosophy into science.”
First of all, I would like to thank HexHammer for giving me my rhizome today as well as illustrating why the issue that seems to thread throughout Issue 109 (as well as Philosophy Now in general (and includes Cool’s article as well as Champagne’s article on the analytic dismissal of the continental, Ruehl’s In Defense of Alain Badiou, and, in an oblique way, King’s article on the Prisoner’s Dilemma: a cornerstone of Game theory.
And I say this because while I could write Hex off as a common troll, I cannot help but see a common dynamic at work between his behavior here and that of scientists and analytic philosophers who dismiss the continental approach. The only difference is that while scientists and analytic philosophers have developed the tools to warrant respect, trolls like Hex (as I have experienced them on the boards (tend to seek shortcuts in mimicking the approaches of their more sophisticated counterparts via socially programmed responses to socially programmed cues. Note, for instance, the heavy handed reverse sentimentality in the above statement, or what I like to refer to as the Capote complex. One could easily imagine Hex, as he wrote his witty critique of me, imagining himself surrounded by an entourage of chuckling disciples. Once again: the in-crowd mentality at work in all this as I described in my post:
“And I cannot help but feel that the two oppositions to the continental/literary approach to philosophy are connected in their submission to producer/consumer Capitalism (via corporate financing of universities (or what Deleuze and Guattarri referred to as state philosophies. Both dismissals stink of Capitalist values not only in their willingness to bend to the tyranny of the functional (I mean what does the analytic approach amount to but philosophy’s guilt at its inability to create an i-pod (and their enthusiasm about turning understanding into some kind of hierarchy, but the kind of in-crowd mentality, Capitalism’s tendency to turn everything into a players game that, at an anything but objective level….”
I mean we have to ask why Hex felt it necessary to be as mean spirited as he was when he could have easily said:
“I just don’t get it.”
And note the appeal to common doxa (the socially programmed response to socially programmed cues (in his final point:
“….without being able to say anything specific how to implement philosophy into science.”
Here, of course, Hex was doing a little ass kissing (that is Cool’s: the star of this particular show and in-crowd he desperately wants to be part of (by acting like I had wandered off her topic when, in fact, the article was not about (nor is this board (how to “implement philosophy into science” (that was just some cliché he picked up somewhere (but rather the present relationship between philosophy and science.
The thing is it seems to me that we should be asking similar questions about Hex’s more sophisticated and RESPECTABLE counterparts. Why, for instance, couldn’t Searle have just admitted that he didn’t get Derrida rather than smugly dismiss him a philosopher for people who understood nothing about philosophy? Why did he feel it necessary to beat Derrida fan's into submission to his guru complex? Or why did Hawkins take such pleasure in the idea of philosophy being rendered obsolete?
By looking at trolls like Hex, we see the problem at its most fundamental level: this notion of the pursuit of understanding as some kind of corporate hierarchy in which someone has to lose in order for the process to work. And watering it down changes nothing here. Once again: a quote from Champagne:
“American philosopher Brian Leiter, for instance, writes on his popular blog that he is “genuinely hopeful that over the next generation Party Line Continentalists will be exiled entirely to literature departments.”
Not that it really matters whether the continental approach is called literature or philosophy in general is delegated to the role of poetry by science, but why would it be so important for Leiter or science to fulfill such a petty wish? Why such a anti-democratic approach that can only stifle the flows of energy we will need to get beyond the next creative hymen –that is having gotten as far as we have: of having reached a point where we have done almost everything we can possibly do?
Once again: the powerful influence (and inherent fascism (of producer/consumer Capitalism.
First of all, I would like to thank HexHammer for giving me my rhizome today as well as illustrating why the issue that seems to thread throughout Issue 109 (as well as Philosophy Now in general (and includes Cool’s article as well as Champagne’s article on the analytic dismissal of the continental, Ruehl’s In Defense of Alain Badiou, and, in an oblique way, King’s article on the Prisoner’s Dilemma: a cornerstone of Game theory.
And I say this because while I could write Hex off as a common troll, I cannot help but see a common dynamic at work between his behavior here and that of scientists and analytic philosophers who dismiss the continental approach. The only difference is that while scientists and analytic philosophers have developed the tools to warrant respect, trolls like Hex (as I have experienced them on the boards (tend to seek shortcuts in mimicking the approaches of their more sophisticated counterparts via socially programmed responses to socially programmed cues. Note, for instance, the heavy handed reverse sentimentality in the above statement, or what I like to refer to as the Capote complex. One could easily imagine Hex, as he wrote his witty critique of me, imagining himself surrounded by an entourage of chuckling disciples. Once again: the in-crowd mentality at work in all this as I described in my post:
“And I cannot help but feel that the two oppositions to the continental/literary approach to philosophy are connected in their submission to producer/consumer Capitalism (via corporate financing of universities (or what Deleuze and Guattarri referred to as state philosophies. Both dismissals stink of Capitalist values not only in their willingness to bend to the tyranny of the functional (I mean what does the analytic approach amount to but philosophy’s guilt at its inability to create an i-pod (and their enthusiasm about turning understanding into some kind of hierarchy, but the kind of in-crowd mentality, Capitalism’s tendency to turn everything into a players game that, at an anything but objective level….”
I mean we have to ask why Hex felt it necessary to be as mean spirited as he was when he could have easily said:
“I just don’t get it.”
And note the appeal to common doxa (the socially programmed response to socially programmed cues (in his final point:
“….without being able to say anything specific how to implement philosophy into science.”
Here, of course, Hex was doing a little ass kissing (that is Cool’s: the star of this particular show and in-crowd he desperately wants to be part of (by acting like I had wandered off her topic when, in fact, the article was not about (nor is this board (how to “implement philosophy into science” (that was just some cliché he picked up somewhere (but rather the present relationship between philosophy and science.
The thing is it seems to me that we should be asking similar questions about Hex’s more sophisticated and RESPECTABLE counterparts. Why, for instance, couldn’t Searle have just admitted that he didn’t get Derrida rather than smugly dismiss him a philosopher for people who understood nothing about philosophy? Why did he feel it necessary to beat Derrida fan's into submission to his guru complex? Or why did Hawkins take such pleasure in the idea of philosophy being rendered obsolete?
By looking at trolls like Hex, we see the problem at its most fundamental level: this notion of the pursuit of understanding as some kind of corporate hierarchy in which someone has to lose in order for the process to work. And watering it down changes nothing here. Once again: a quote from Champagne:
“American philosopher Brian Leiter, for instance, writes on his popular blog that he is “genuinely hopeful that over the next generation Party Line Continentalists will be exiled entirely to literature departments.”
Not that it really matters whether the continental approach is called literature or philosophy in general is delegated to the role of poetry by science, but why would it be so important for Leiter or science to fulfill such a petty wish? Why such a anti-democratic approach that can only stifle the flows of energy we will need to get beyond the next creative hymen –that is having gotten as far as we have: of having reached a point where we have done almost everything we can possibly do?
Once again: the powerful influence (and inherent fascism (of producer/consumer Capitalism.
Re: Science & Philosophy: A Beautiful Friendship
“Can only read 1½ paragraph, but so far it seems like a delusional tard babbeling without being able to say anything specific how to implement philosophy into science.” -reference: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=16294&p=219717#p219717
“I mean we have to ask why Hex felt it necessary to be as mean spirited as he was when he could have easily said:
“I just don’t get it.”
And note the appeal to common doxa (the socially programmed response to socially programmed cues (in his final point:
“….without being able to say anything specific how to implement philosophy into science….
The thing is it seems to me that we should be asking similar questions about Hex’s more sophisticated and RESPECTABLE counterparts. Why, for instance, couldn’t Searle have just admitted that he didn’t get Derrida rather than smugly dismiss him a philosopher for people who understood nothing about philosophy? Why did he feel it necessary to beat Derrida fan's into submission to his guru complex? Or why did Hawkins take such pleasure in the idea of philosophy being rendered obsolete?”
We can also see the same mocking tone at work in a quote offered by Champagne from Mario Bunge’s Philosophical Dictionary:
“DASEIN: Being-there. The trademark of existentialism. In some texts, Dasein = Real existence. In others,Dasein = Human existence. In still others Dasein = Consciousness. The hermeneutic difficulty is compounded by the recurrent phrase “das Sein des Daseins,” i.e., the being of being-there. Related terms not yet used by existentialists: Hiersein (Being-here), Dortsein (Being-over-there), Irgendwosein (Being-somewhere), and Nirgendwosein (Being-nowhere)… Jetztsein (Being-now), Dannsein (Being-then),Irgendwannsein (Being-sometime), and Niemalssein (Being-never)… Note how natural these combinations sound in German, and how clumsy their English counterparts sound. Which proves that German (when suitably macerated) is the ideal language for existentialism. A number of deep metaphysical questions involving these concepts can be framed. For example, ‘Was ist der Sinn des Dawannseienden?’ (What is the sense of Being-there-whenness?) ‘Was ist das Sein des Nirgendniemalsseins?’ (What is the being of Being-never-nowhereness?)… A systematic exploration of this vast family of expressions might lead to a considerable extension of existentialism.”
And once again: you have to ask: why? And one clue may lay in an anecdotal experience of mine. I was in a creative writing class in which we read emerging writers and did critiques of them. The first one I did was generally positive. And the response from my teacher was tepid. On the next one, I had absorbed his negative take on the book, dug into the book deeply looking for the reasons for his response, and dashed out a critique that got a far more enthusiastic response from him. But what I mainly took from the experience is that the main problem with negative criticism is that it ends up being more about the critic than the thing being critiqued. As we can see from the above negative critiques (including mine of Hex (it offers us an opportunity to be clever and witty and, in that capacity, can be a compelling source of inspiration. At the same time, in the hands of amateurs (as is the case with most trolls (it can reduce to the same heavy handed reverse sentimentality (sentimentality meaning anything that tries to elicit a response it fails to justify, that which, as Tennyson says, holds out its lips to be kissed or blackens the eyes (that Hex engaged in which we should expect given their rather heavy handed choice of username: HexHammer. I mean Hex did put the hammer down on me, didn’t they?
I would also note here that this type of intellectual arrogance and vitriol is not just passed down from the scientific community to philosophy, but within the scientific community itself -that is between so-called “serious science” and any scientific exploration that even has the stinch of metaphysics about it such as Brian Greene’s openness to the notion of multiple universes (which is mathematically demonstrated (or David Chalmers’ neo-dualist panprotopsychism. I had a poster on another board argue that these types of exploration were detrimental to science since they, having a more popular appeal, tended to divert resources from more “serious” forms of science. And this, once again, is propped up by an elitist contrarian position that assumes that if it is popular, if common people get it, it must be wrong: the perfectly a-scientific agenda.
And we have to ask the same question in the case of Greene and Chalmers as we do philosophy: why? What good does it do to shut down discourses based on arbitrary and self serving criteria when the creative energy generated by multiple discourses interacting may be exactly what we need to get us beyond the next creative hymen, an act which may well have some very verifiable results?
Case to point: from an American perspective, the 90’s was not just an economic or technological boom, it was a creative one as well. It was an escalation of energy generated through a non-linear feedback loop between the freeing up of credit, the momentum created by the big bang of personal computing (the technology that developed by Galileo’s Law of Falling bodies: a constant rate of acceleration, and the artistic movements: Gaming, Grunge, Electronica, Ambient, Postmodernism, etc..
And all the intellectual arrogance and elitism of Scientism and the Analytic approach is doing for us is shutting down the possibility of experiencing that kind of creative energy again. And it’s not that we’re asking them to embrace what they don’t believe. All we’re asking them to do is show a little humility in the face of a reality that none of us alone can fully capture. All we need them to do is admit that the answer to understanding will require a lot of different people using a lot of different methods to even hope to approach it.
“I mean we have to ask why Hex felt it necessary to be as mean spirited as he was when he could have easily said:
“I just don’t get it.”
And note the appeal to common doxa (the socially programmed response to socially programmed cues (in his final point:
“….without being able to say anything specific how to implement philosophy into science….
The thing is it seems to me that we should be asking similar questions about Hex’s more sophisticated and RESPECTABLE counterparts. Why, for instance, couldn’t Searle have just admitted that he didn’t get Derrida rather than smugly dismiss him a philosopher for people who understood nothing about philosophy? Why did he feel it necessary to beat Derrida fan's into submission to his guru complex? Or why did Hawkins take such pleasure in the idea of philosophy being rendered obsolete?”
We can also see the same mocking tone at work in a quote offered by Champagne from Mario Bunge’s Philosophical Dictionary:
“DASEIN: Being-there. The trademark of existentialism. In some texts, Dasein = Real existence. In others,Dasein = Human existence. In still others Dasein = Consciousness. The hermeneutic difficulty is compounded by the recurrent phrase “das Sein des Daseins,” i.e., the being of being-there. Related terms not yet used by existentialists: Hiersein (Being-here), Dortsein (Being-over-there), Irgendwosein (Being-somewhere), and Nirgendwosein (Being-nowhere)… Jetztsein (Being-now), Dannsein (Being-then),Irgendwannsein (Being-sometime), and Niemalssein (Being-never)… Note how natural these combinations sound in German, and how clumsy their English counterparts sound. Which proves that German (when suitably macerated) is the ideal language for existentialism. A number of deep metaphysical questions involving these concepts can be framed. For example, ‘Was ist der Sinn des Dawannseienden?’ (What is the sense of Being-there-whenness?) ‘Was ist das Sein des Nirgendniemalsseins?’ (What is the being of Being-never-nowhereness?)… A systematic exploration of this vast family of expressions might lead to a considerable extension of existentialism.”
And once again: you have to ask: why? And one clue may lay in an anecdotal experience of mine. I was in a creative writing class in which we read emerging writers and did critiques of them. The first one I did was generally positive. And the response from my teacher was tepid. On the next one, I had absorbed his negative take on the book, dug into the book deeply looking for the reasons for his response, and dashed out a critique that got a far more enthusiastic response from him. But what I mainly took from the experience is that the main problem with negative criticism is that it ends up being more about the critic than the thing being critiqued. As we can see from the above negative critiques (including mine of Hex (it offers us an opportunity to be clever and witty and, in that capacity, can be a compelling source of inspiration. At the same time, in the hands of amateurs (as is the case with most trolls (it can reduce to the same heavy handed reverse sentimentality (sentimentality meaning anything that tries to elicit a response it fails to justify, that which, as Tennyson says, holds out its lips to be kissed or blackens the eyes (that Hex engaged in which we should expect given their rather heavy handed choice of username: HexHammer. I mean Hex did put the hammer down on me, didn’t they?
I would also note here that this type of intellectual arrogance and vitriol is not just passed down from the scientific community to philosophy, but within the scientific community itself -that is between so-called “serious science” and any scientific exploration that even has the stinch of metaphysics about it such as Brian Greene’s openness to the notion of multiple universes (which is mathematically demonstrated (or David Chalmers’ neo-dualist panprotopsychism. I had a poster on another board argue that these types of exploration were detrimental to science since they, having a more popular appeal, tended to divert resources from more “serious” forms of science. And this, once again, is propped up by an elitist contrarian position that assumes that if it is popular, if common people get it, it must be wrong: the perfectly a-scientific agenda.
And we have to ask the same question in the case of Greene and Chalmers as we do philosophy: why? What good does it do to shut down discourses based on arbitrary and self serving criteria when the creative energy generated by multiple discourses interacting may be exactly what we need to get us beyond the next creative hymen, an act which may well have some very verifiable results?
Case to point: from an American perspective, the 90’s was not just an economic or technological boom, it was a creative one as well. It was an escalation of energy generated through a non-linear feedback loop between the freeing up of credit, the momentum created by the big bang of personal computing (the technology that developed by Galileo’s Law of Falling bodies: a constant rate of acceleration, and the artistic movements: Gaming, Grunge, Electronica, Ambient, Postmodernism, etc..
And all the intellectual arrogance and elitism of Scientism and the Analytic approach is doing for us is shutting down the possibility of experiencing that kind of creative energy again. And it’s not that we’re asking them to embrace what they don’t believe. All we’re asking them to do is show a little humility in the face of a reality that none of us alone can fully capture. All we need them to do is admit that the answer to understanding will require a lot of different people using a lot of different methods to even hope to approach it.
Re: Science & Philosophy: A Beautiful Friendship
A lot is said about the symbiotic relationship that exists between science and philosophy. But nothing is said about the symbiotic relationship that exists between science and liberal democracy. (Liberal democracy is basically a philosophical construct.)
Each has developed, basked and flourished in the others glow.
Each has developed, basked and flourished in the others glow.
Re: Science & Philosophy: A Beautiful Friendship
Agreed, Spike. Unfortunately, that relationship has reached an impasse with the issue of climate change and global Capitalism. Now the given power structure exploits our democracies by making it seem as if it is in everyone's interest to serve its interests. Take, for instance, the argument concerning jobs lost through environmental policy. And the voice of science, which leans towards these policies, is shut out of the discoursed. Our climate scientists have basically become modern Galileo's.spike wrote:A lot is said about the symbiotic relationship that exists between science and philosophy. But nothing is said about the symbiotic relationship that exists between science and liberal democracy. (Liberal democracy is basically a philosophical construct.)
Each has developed, basked and flourished in the others glow.
Re: Science & Philosophy: A Beautiful Friendship
EXTRA: Science unravels a philosophy of conspiring and deceit at Volkswagen