What is the purpose of philosophy?

[SYZ]

From the horse's mouth...

"Except for a patina of twenty-first century modernity, in the form of logic and language, philosophy is exactly the same now as it ever was;
it has made no progress whatsoever. We philosophers wrestle with the exact same problems the pre-Socratics wrestled with, so we must
concede philosophy’s inability to solve any philosophical problem, ever."

–Dietrich, Eric:  Essays in Philosophy, July 2011.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It is one way to get people talking about a problem.

[GirlyMan]

When I was still majoring in PHIL at uni, we had a joke that the purpose of majoring in PHIL was to score the highest on the LSAT. (It's true too, PHIL majors score highest on the LSAT.)

I had a Math major and just a Phil minor, so I only got a 754 on the LSAT. 

That Math major fucked you up, brother. The LSAT s scored 120-180.

Not in the 1970's it didn't.  Just like the SATs it was 200-800. 


So that 754 would be 175 (175.4 rounded) on the new scale.

That'd get you into Yale Law. Math might not have fucked you up as much as I think. Still don't mean I ain't gonna tease you about it though, nerd.

[Dancefortwo]

It is one way to get people talking about a problem.

Yabut, I'm still going with ----- :hasselhoff:

[houseofcantor]

To get Chas and Girly arguing, 'cause that shit's hilarious.

[Bucky Ball]

Philosophy is a jobs plan for those incapable of actually earning a living by doing something. 

[SYZ]

Philosophy is a jobs plan for those incapable of actually earning a living by doing something.

LOL... most accurate description I've seen here!    

[Mathilda]

I haven't read the thread yet (I'll catch up after this).

But I started a thread asking the same question on AF. I found the responses quite enlightening.

I also came to the conclusion that yes we still need philosophy, but not from generic philosophers. Philosophers should work alongside specialists taking into account cutting edge research and seeing how it fits into the bigger picture. There are some philosophers that do this that I really admire. And they're useful! Their work is useful because it is relevant.

You do get a lot of philosophers talking about AI though and most of them talk absolute rubbish because they don't actually research it themselves. They normally call themselves futurists. But the scientists working on the problem themselves are best placed to write philosophy papers I find.

It's actually inspired me to write my own paper on philosophy which I have been formulating for the last few months. I want to discuss how non equilibrium thermodynamics shape society and how many social subjects can be understood in terms of self organisation.

[Mathilda]

It is one way to get people talking about a problem.

Yabut, I'm still going with ----- :hasselhoff:

Well I'm glad that someone's using the Hoff emoji ...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It is one way to get people talking about a problem.

Yabut, I'm still going with ----- :hasselhoff:

Well I'm glad that someone's using the Hoff emoji ...

Star Lord uses it.

[Snoopy]

I think the purpose of philosophy is curiousity.
Curiousity leads to a discovery.

The second mouse got the cheese.

[Mathilda]

Fucking mice always nibbling away at the cheese.

[Snoopy]

Fucking mice always nibbling away at the cheese.

Yeah. I'm still wondering what happened to the cat. 

[Kim]

---
It's actually inspired me to write my own paper on philosophy which I have been formulating for the last few months. I want to discuss how non equilibrium thermodynamics shape society and how many social subjects can be understood in terms of self organisation.

I think that ^^right there^^, scares the living shit out of people. 
Ok, I'll clarify that ... it scares the living shit out of religious people. 

Many just want god(s) to keep them warm & comfy.   

[Mathilda]

---
It's actually inspired me to write my own paper on philosophy which I have been formulating for the last few months. I want to discuss how non equilibrium thermodynamics shape society and how many social subjects can be understood in terms of self organisation.

I think that ^^right there^^, scares the living shit out of people. 
Ok, I'll clarify that ... it scares the living shit out of religious people. 

Many just want god(s) to keep them warm & comfy. 

Last time I visited my parents, I wanted to explain my ideas to my mum and religionist brother. But before I even properly started my brother started really aggressively attacking the idea of the brain working along those lines.

Of course I got the blame for the ensuing argument by my mum because my brother didn't once mention religion. But I knew that's why he hated the concept so much. It means there is no such thing as a soul. And if you don't have that then absolutely everything else about the Xtian mythos also crumbles.

It's made me want to write the paper even more. While religious brother prints out pamphlets to hand out to people.

[Yonadav]

---
It's actually inspired me to write my own paper on philosophy which I have been formulating for the last few months. I want to discuss how non equilibrium thermodynamics shape society and how many social subjects can be understood in terms of self organisation.

I think that ^^right there^^, scares the living shit out of people. 
Ok, I'll clarify that ... it scares the living shit out of religious people. 

Many just want god(s) to keep them warm & comfy. 

I don't see it as frightening from a religious perspective, and I don't think that most religious people would.  As far as social theories go, Mathilda's proposed paper sounds a bit like a mixture of social and economic Darwinism and a justification for the status quo.  I obviously haven't read the paper that Mathilda hasn't written yet, though.  So I have no idea of who should be frightened by it.

I suspect Mathilda's motivation.  I think that she is being a bit mischievous.  I know that she has a low opinion of philosophers dabbling in matters concerning computer science.  As a computer scientist, she wants to strike back by dabbling in philosophy.  That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it. 

[Mathilda]

As far as social theories go, Mathilda's proposed paper sounds a bit like a mixture of social and economic Darwinism and a justification for the status quo.

No justification at all. Just trying to describe the underlying process. The theory gives testable predictions. For example, if we found a new energy source that gave cheaper energy than is available with fossil fuels then this would lead to authoritarianism because governments would have more power to conquer and exploit populations (think industrial revolution). Whereas if the energy source powering an economy is scarce then you need your population working more efficiently which means a fairer more equal society.

I obviously haven't read the paper that Mathilda hasn't written yet, though.  So I have no idea of who should be frightened by it.

I suspect Mathilda's motivation.  I think that she is being a bit mischievous.  I know that she has a low opinion of philosophers dabbling in matters concerning computer science.  As a computer scientist, she wants to strike back by dabbling in philosophy.  That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it. 

No. It's just that the only decent philosophy papers I have ever read have been by subject experts rather than generic philosophers.

[Chas]

---
It's actually inspired me to write my own paper on philosophy which I have been formulating for the last few months. I want to discuss how non equilibrium thermodynamics shape society and how many social subjects can be understood in terms of self organisation.

I think that ^^right there^^, scares the living shit out of people. 
Ok, I'll clarify that ... it scares the living shit out of religious people. 

Many just want god(s) to keep them warm & comfy. 

I don't see it as frightening from a religious perspective, and I don't think that most religious people would.

Then you don't understand what she's talking about.  Or will talk about.

As far as social theories go, Mathilda's proposed paper sounds a bit like a mixture of social and economic Darwinism and a justification for the status quo. 

See above. 

I obviously haven't read the paper that Mathilda hasn't written yet, though. 

Obviously. 

So I have no idea of who should be frightened by it.

Yet you say you don't see why anyone should be. 

I suspect Mathilda's motivation.  I think that she is being a bit mischievous. 

Then you don't understand what she's talking about.

I know that she has a low opinion of philosophers dabbling in matters concerning computer science.  As a computer scientist, she wants to strike back by dabbling in philosophy.  That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it. 

Where did you get this idea?  Everyone is a philosopher, you know.  Most just aren't very good at it.


Computer science, on the other hand, is mathematics.  Many philosophers just aren't very good at it.

[Aliza]

What do you think is the purpose of philosophy, if it even has one at all? Why do you think it's important, or alternatively, why do you think it is not?

Philosophy is... weird. At best, the writings of philosophers can be used to get a feel for the attitudes held at the time an individual work was written. For the most part, philosophers write a bunch of biased bullshit with a few gems scattered throughout their writing. I generally don't think there's one right way of doing something and I don't think anyone (past or present) has enough information to speak on any authority about what's right and what's wrong or what is and what isn't. I find that the philosophers Tartarus has exposed me to (which make up the entire set of philosophers that I know about) tend to think in absolutes. They have zero evidence for the conclusions they draw and they're usually limited in their perspective to only the set of circumstances they themselves have been exposed to. Yet they are closed minded to the possibility that they may be wrong or that there may be information they haven't considered or that hasn't even been discovered.

I do understand the value of social sciences, though. I gather that social science kind of pulls from philosophy, but social science picks and chooses the values and ideas espoused by philosophers and applies them in a more practical setting.

[Free]

I think philosophy is merely a means of attempting to categorize and rationalize what may be unknowable.

When we start counting numbers, do they go on forever?

What existed before the observable universe?

If energy cannot be created or destroyed, does that mean it's eternal?

Philosophy is a mind-fuck into the abyss of lunacy.

[Chas]

Philosophy is a mind-fuck into the abyss of lunacy.

You say that like it's a bad thing. 

[Mediocharist]

Might as well use this thread to start us off in this section. I was having a conversation with Aliza the other day about philosophy and why I consider it to be important. For those of you unaware, Aliza is very much a STEM oriented person, she can appreciate things outside the sciences, but she can have a difficult time, well, "getting it," so to speak. Not because she considers it worthless, mind you, but because it's just not her style of analyzing problems. I explained to her my ideas about why philosophy is necessary component that undergirds the logic of just about everything else we do, but I didn't feel like my thoughts were particularly well developed. I've since done some more thinking about it, although not for the purpose of explaining it to Aliza again, but so that my own thoughts on it can be more clearly composed and to generate discussion on the topic.

Philosophy, to me, is essentially the roadmap upon which we frame the essence of our thoughts and their relationships to one another. It asks the most fundamental questions without definitive answers because they are questions that must be asked. The asking is more important than the answering, and how you reached your conclusions matter more than the conclusions by themselves. Philosophy simultaneously illimunates our potential, yet informs us of our limits; engages our capacity to reason, yet demonstrates its flaws; provides clarity for our actions, yet leaves us more unsure than ever. It's value cannot be measured in terms of progress, yet progress is impossible in its absence. It is the mirror that reflects back at us, deconstructs us, then reconstitutes us. It is not about the what, it is about the why.

What do you think is the purpose of philosophy, if it even has one at all? Why do you think it's important, or alternatively, why do you think it is not?

Asking things like "Why are ducks" seems like an utterly pointless thing to ask once the people who actually discover things have already defined more or less precisely what ducks are.

The one time I feel philosophy isn't running closer to mental masturbation than it is to actual discovery is the sub-field of epistemology, or the justification of knowledge. And far as I am yet concerned, that already has an answer; evidentialistic epistemology. Because either evidence dictates what is called 'knowledge', or you must fall to word-salad sophistry where everything and nothing are knowledge also.

[EvieTheAvocado]

"What's the purpose of philosophy?" is a question that cannot be asked unphilosophically...

What's the purpose of anything? What's the purpose of science? What's the purpose of logic? (And both logic and science came out of philosophy).

Basically any field taken to the deepest theoretical level becomes philosophy. An example of how philosophy has advanced science would be how Karl Popper put forward the theory of falsifiability. Before that scientists would go about triyng to confirm that all swans were white by finding more white swans... when all they had to do was find one black swan to falsify it.

When people get really anti-philosophical it's one of my greatest pet peeves because they tend to always have a great deal of respect for logic and science for plenty ideas that would never exist without philosophy. I mean, some of the greatest liberal political movements were driven by philosphical fields of thought as well. Philosophy doesn't get enough credit...but, of course, it doesn't need credit from the people who don't have the right mindset for it anyway.

philosophy is necessary component that undergirds the logic of just about everything else we do

I couldn't put that better myself.

All the fundamental axioms for any field of study are ultimately philosophical... philosophy has already done most of the work before many of these fields even get started. All the anti-philosophical people love to enjoy the fruits of a tree while ignoring the tree.

how you reached your conclusions matter more than the conclusions by themselves

Absolutely. Rationality is paramount and, like I said, logic came out of philosophy.

Its value cannot be measured in terms of progress, yet progress is impossible in its absence.

Absolutely correct once again. As soon as philosophy has done the requisite work for a field to be deemed worthwhile it then no longer gets named philosophy anymore. Philosophy is the grandmother of modernity.

It is the mirror that reflects back at us, deconstructs us, then reconstitutes us. It is not about the what, it is about the why.

Indeed.

What do you think is the purpose of philosophy, if it even has one at all? Why do you think it's important, or alternatively, why do you think it is not?

What do you mean by purpose? Purpose for what? Philosophy is just about questioning the fundamentals, it's about deep questioning, and many useful fields and ideas have come out of it. Great thought experiments come out of it. Some of the best science fiction poses ideas that are more philosophical than scientific.

We have to do some philosophy in order to make sense of your question.

Personally, On the matter of purpose I'd look at it like this: Desires come first. And Y has a purpose if it helps us get to X which we desire. But then on the other hand we could say that our highest desire or great ambition is our purpose. But for each of us. We give meaning to our own lives. I'm very much an individualist. Philosophy has a purpose for people who want to do philosophy.

What is it useful for? Well, like you've said yourself, philosophy is less about being useful in and of itself and more about providing the very foundations for anything else to be useful at all.

And for those who don't know... science used to be called "natural philosophy", science is empirical and empiricism is a philosophical approach and the fundamentals of logic was laid down by the philosopher, Aristotle. I'm sure a lot of people know that stuff though.

[EvieTheAvocado]

From an outsider perspective it seems to me that philosophy is the religion of atheists.

Except that philosophy is not a religion...

There are atheistic religions... Taoism for example. And some forms of Buddhism.

But all religions fundamentally have some kind of creed or set of beliefs... philosophy isn't like that. Philosophy is about reasons... not about beliefs.

[EvieTheAvocado]

Philosophy is a passion thing like religion. Lots of people try to do it and do it very badly.

99% of everything is bullshit though.

And if philosophy couldn't be done well we wouldn't even have science.