'Art' and 'Truth': How Important Are the Creative Arts for Philosophical Understanding?

[Will Bouwman]

Paradigm shifts are extremely important in thinking of how models are constructed and I am interested in the sociology of knowledge and the social construction of ideas. The way in which ideas of 'truth' are constructed involves so much on a personal and cultural basis. As well as the methods of art and science, it involves logos and mythos as aspects of human understanding.

Well, for paradigm shifts and an intro to the social construction of ideas, you can have a look at my biog of Thomas Kuhn, also in the magazine: https://philosophynow.org/issues/131/Th ... _1922-1996 Kuhn was a great thinker, but like all the greats, he didn't exist in a bubble.

[Gary Childress]

I am writing this thread because it does seem to me that art and the creative arts play are often considered as having low importance for philosophy.

Philosophy is a creative art. Put simply, stuff happens. We see it happen and there are two basic responses. One is to measure and find patterns that will help us predict what will happen in the future. That is science. The other is to think of a reason for why something happens. So long as any created reason is compatible with what demonstrably and measurably happens, it could be true. The thing is, for any demonstrable and measurable happening, there are many potential reasons. None of them make any difference to what is seen or measured; those reasons are philosophy. As it happens, I wrote an article on this theme for the Magazine: https://philosophynow.org/issues/133/Ph ... _Millennia

Philosophy and most forms of art seem pretty different from each other. Philosophy involves dialogue and reasoning. Art is also less precise and generally doesn't hold itself as rigorously true. I don't think of people like Kant as an artist.

[Jack Daydream]

Paradigm shifts are extremely important in thinking of how models are constructed and I am interested in the sociology of knowledge and the social construction of ideas. The way in which ideas of 'truth' are constructed involves so much on a personal and cultural basis. As well as the methods of art and science, it involves logos and mythos as aspects of human understanding.

Well, for paradigm shifts and an intro to the social construction of ideas, you can have a look at my biog of Thomas Kuhn, also in the magazine: https://philosophynow.org/issues/131/Th ... _1922-1996 Kuhn was a great thinker, but like all the greats, he didn't exist in a bubble.

Once again, a very interesting article, which looks at the scientific methods critically. I have not read Kuhn but have read the ideas of logical positivism, including A J Ayer's criticism of metaphysics. The roots of science, including thinkers like Aristotle are important to consider critically.

There is so much emphasis evidence in science as the main foundation for consensus and verification of 'truth'. Often, the way evidence is gathered and presented has a lot to be questioned. Some of it comes down to biases in the art of interpretation or even deliberate skewing of 'truth'. Postmodernism gave rise to cultural relativism but postmodernism in itself may be outdated. Perhaps, a new paradigm is needed, or a careful sifting of the history of ideas and as a basis for future creative ones.

[Gary Childress]

Generally, there is no such thing as a mistaken artist. Philosophers on the other hand can be.

[Gary Childress]

Paradigm shifts are extremely important in thinking of how models are constructed and I am interested in the sociology of knowledge and the social construction of ideas. The way in which ideas of 'truth' are constructed involves so much on a personal and cultural basis. As well as the methods of art and science, it involves logos and mythos as aspects of human understanding.

Well, for paradigm shifts and an intro to the social construction of ideas, you can have a look at my biog of Thomas Kuhn, also in the magazine: https://philosophynow.org/issues/131/Th ... _1922-1996 Kuhn was a great thinker, but like all the greats, he didn't exist in a bubble.

Once again, a very interesting article, which looks at the scientific methods critically. I have not read Kuhn but have read the ideas of logical positivism, including A J Ayer's criticism of metaphysics. The roots of science, including thinkers like Aristotle are important to consider critically.

There is so much emphasis evidence in science as the main foundation for consensus and verification of 'truth'. Often, the way evidence is gathered and presented has a lot to be questioned. Some of it comes down to biases in the art of interpretation or even deliberate skewing of 'truth'. Postmodernism gave rise to cultural relativism but postmodernism in itself may be outdated. Perhaps, a new paradigm is needed, or a careful sifting of the history of ideas and as a basis for future creative ones.

Is "paradigm theory" a 'paradigm'?

[Jack Daydream]

Well, for paradigm shifts and an intro to the social construction of ideas, you can have a look at my biog of Thomas Kuhn, also in the magazine: https://philosophynow.org/issues/131/Th ... _1922-1996 Kuhn was a great thinker, but like all the greats, he didn't exist in a bubble.

Once again, a very interesting article, which looks at the scientific methods critically. I have not read Kuhn but have read the ideas of logical positivism, including A J Ayer's criticism of metaphysics. The roots of science, including thinkers like Aristotle are important to consider critically.

There is so much emphasis evidence in science as the main foundation for consensus and verification of 'truth'. Often, the way evidence is gathered and presented has a lot to be questioned. Some of it comes down to biases in the art of interpretation or even deliberate skewing of 'truth'. Postmodernism gave rise to cultural relativism but postmodernism in itself may be outdated. Perhaps, a new paradigm is needed, or a careful sifting of the history of ideas and as a basis for future creative ones.

Is "paradigm theory" a 'paradigm'?

I understand paradigm theory as being an underlying structure, framework or foundation for critical thinking. For example, there is the Cartesian-Newtownian paradidm one which came prior to the one based on the quantum theory of Einstein and systems theory.

[Gary Childress]

Once again, a very interesting article, which looks at the scientific methods critically. I have not read Kuhn but have read the ideas of logical positivism, including A J Ayer's criticism of metaphysics. The roots of science, including thinkers like Aristotle are important to consider critically.

There is so much emphasis evidence in science as the main foundation for consensus and verification of 'truth'. Often, the way evidence is gathered and presented has a lot to be questioned. Some of it comes down to biases in the art of interpretation or even deliberate skewing of 'truth'. Postmodernism gave rise to cultural relativism but postmodernism in itself may be outdated. Perhaps, a new paradigm is needed, or a careful sifting of the history of ideas and as a basis for future creative ones.

Is "paradigm theory" a 'paradigm'?

I understand paradigm theory as being an underlying structure, framework or foundation for critical thinking. For example, there is the Cartesian-Newtownian paradidm one which came prior to the one based on the quantum theory of Einstein and systems theory.

So will we always be shifting "paradigms" or can we reach a point where science is no longer paradigmatic (in which case, paradigm theory would no longer be a true or accurate description of scientific progress)?

[Gary Childress]

As far as answering the question: How Important Are the Creative Arts for Philosophical Understanding?

I would say the creative arts are important for philosophical understanding because they sometimes can capture phenomena in ways that are ineffable or not easily articulated by philosophy. However, I would not call Philosophy a "creative art".

[Jack Daydream]

Is "paradigm theory" a 'paradigm'?

I understand paradigm theory as being an underlying structure, framework or foundation for critical thinking. For example, there is the Cartesian-Newtownian paradidm one which came prior to the one based on the quantum theory of Einstein and systems theory.

So will we always be shifting "paradigms" or can we reach a point where science is no longer paradigmatic (in which case, paradigm theory would no longer be a true or accurate description of scientific progress)?

It may not be possible to know whether paradigms will continue to shift without knowing the limits and scope of potential knowledge and understanding. It may shift in a linear or cyclical way, or combination of both. It also comes down to whether is there an end to possible knowledge or is infinite evolutionary potential?

[Gary Childress]

I understand paradigm theory as being an underlying structure, framework or foundation for critical thinking. For example, there is the Cartesian-Newtownian paradidm one which came prior to the one based on the quantum theory of Einstein and systems theory.

So will we always be shifting "paradigms" or can we reach a point where science is no longer paradigmatic (in which case, paradigm theory would no longer be a true or accurate description of scientific progress)?

It may not be possible to know whether paradigms will continue to shift without knowing the limits and scope of potential knowledge and understanding. It may shift in a linear or cyclical way, or combination of both. It also comes down to whether is there an end to possible knowledge or is infinite evolutionary potential?

Sometimes it seems as if there is no progress, that everything is cycles, but in some ways maybe there is. At the very least most of us have an Internet connection. Nobody had one 2000 years ago, but then again, maybe being tied to modern technology and unable to survive without it is more like regress. Hegel was very much a believer in progress. Foucault not so much.

[Jack Daydream]

So will we always be shifting "paradigms" or can we reach a point where science is no longer paradigmatic (in which case, paradigm theory would no longer be a true or accurate description of scientific progress)?

It may not be possible to know whether paradigms will continue to shift without knowing the limits and scope of potential knowledge and understanding. It may shift in a linear or cyclical way, or combination of both. It also comes down to whether is there an end to possible knowledge or is infinite evolutionary potential?

Sometimes it seems as if there is no progress, that everything is cycles, but in some ways maybe there is. At the very least most of us have an Internet connection. Nobody had one 2000 years ago, but then again, maybe being tied to modern technology and unable to survive without it is more like regress. Hegel was very much a believer in progress. Foucault not so much.

There is a large difference in the various means of seeking 'truth'. Karl Jaspers spoke of the 'axial age', which involved religious or spiritual seeking 'within'. Humanism brought the quest into human rationality and psychological or self discovery. The current direction is artificial intelligence and transhumanist technologies. It does depend on how this will go, in terms of progress...?

[Veritas Aequitas]

I am writing this thread because it does seem to me that art and the creative arts play are often considered as having low importance for philosophy.

Art and Creative arts are not that prominent in philosophy per se. Example is the Iliad of Homer, Plato's republic, Schopenhauer's praised of Wagner in music and some others. There is not much room for such creativity in modern philosophy.

Creativity is associated with novelty, surprise, paradigm shifting, and the likes that has lots or some positive values to the progress of humanity.
As such all the new found knowledge and paradigm shifts in philosophy would have involved some sort of creativity.

What is critical with creativity is it must be grounded on imagination, i.e. something that is imaginable thus empirically possible. Something that emerged out of speculation without possible empirical grounds could be non-sensical, e.g. the empty illusory God or other illusional ideas, imo, would not be considered creative.

Note Einstein's
Imagination is more important than knowledge in facilitating creativity in science, i.e. the enabling of new justifiable scientific truths.

What is most critical in philosophy is rationality [logic] and wisdom, but it should not be straightjacketed by logic, thus it need to be open-ended as grounded on the empirical that will facilitate creativity.

As Bertrand Russel had stated:

“Philosophy, as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether that of tradition or that of revelation.

All definite knowledge – so I should contend – belongs to science; all dogmas as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a No Man’s Land, exposed to attack from both sides, and this No Man’s Land is philosophy. Almost all the questions of most interest to speculative minds are such as science cannot answer, and the confident answers of theologians no longer seem so convincing as they did in former centuries.”

This no-man's land is the fertile bed for creativity within philosophy.

[Will Bouwman]

Once again, a very interesting article, which looks at the scientific methods critically. I have not read Kuhn but have read the ideas of logical positivism, including A J Ayer's criticism of metaphysics. The roots of science, including thinkers like Aristotle are important to consider critically.

In which case here's something else I wrote: https://philosophynow.org/issues/104/Ph ... d_Branches

There is so much emphasis evidence in science as the main foundation for consensus and verification of 'truth'.

There are different aspects to science. It starts with some phenomenon that someone takes an interest in. If they just want to come up with an explanation, that's philosophy. If on the other hand, they measure, record, seek mathematical patterns in their data, perhaps develop technology to exploit the phenomenon, that's science. Explanations don't make any difference to the science. In fact you can have multiple explanations for the same phenomenon, there are different explanations for gravity, for example. Or you can have none, which was Newton's attitude to his own theory of gravity. What is 'true' in science is whether something behaves the way it is described; it is true, for example that close to the surface, Earth's gravity accelerates falling objects by 9.8 metres per second each second. While that is verifiably true, no matter how many times you measure, it will not tell you anything about whether warped spacetime or the exchange of gravitons is the cause.

Often, the way evidence is gathered and presented has a lot to be questioned. Some of it comes down to biases in the art of interpretation or even deliberate skewing of 'truth'.

That is true; not all scientists overcome their biases, or even attempt to; creation science being an example, Trofim Lysenko another.

Postmodernism gave rise to cultural relativism but postmodernism in itself may be outdated. Perhaps, a new paradigm is needed, or a careful sifting of the history of ideas and as a basis for future creative ones.

Well, postmodernism is really just the realisation that the early 20th century 'modernist' project of broadly empiricist philosophers like Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Vienna Circle and AJ Ayer to fulfil the rationalists' dream of founding philosophy on logically sound principles was dead in the water. Despite what 'analytic philosophers' claim, it still is. Blaming that for cultural relativism is nonsense; there have always been different cultures that survive perfectly well with different philosophies, which anyone who can accept that they might be wrong should be a cause for celebration.

[Will Bouwman]

There is not much room for such creativity in modern philosophy.

This no-man's land is the fertile bed for creativity within philosophy.

Make your mind up.

[Will Bouwman]

Philosophy and most forms of art seem pretty different from each other. Philosophy involves dialogue and reasoning. Art is also less precise and generally doesn't hold itself as rigorously true. I don't think of people like Kant as an artist.

Well, there are different materials and different tools, but whether those are scales and musical theory, paint and rules of perspective or ideas and laws of logic, the creative process is basically the same - get your ingredients, follow the recipe et voila! Personally, I think anyone who believes that their philosophy is "rigorously true" is a blithering halfwit. The best that philosophers can achieve is rigorously coherent, insofar as what they claim is consistent with the rules of logic they impose upon themselves.