Lately, the conversations I’ve been having here and with friends on other sites have focused my attention on the question, “what is the role of philosophy in an age of science?” (I have a long-standing interest in this question, as someone who pursued an undergraduate degree in biology and switched to philosophy for graduate study.)
Here are a couple of options that I think deserve to be taken seriously — though I think there are reasons for thinking that some of them are preferable to others — in coming up with this list I was inspired by Ian Barbour‘s models on science and religion —
(1) total separation: science inquires into a posteriori truths, and philosophy inquires into a priori truths, so nothing that science has to say can affect philosophy, or the other way around. (Another version of total separation puts the emphasis on the distinction between the descriptive project of science and the normative project of philosophy — “how ought we to live?” is not, at first blush, a scientific question.)
(2) conflict — philosophy makes claims about the human condition, experience, value, meaning (etc.) that are undermined by the causal explanations provided by science. Under the conflict model, science takes priority over philosophy, or philosophy takes priority over science. For example, phenomenology took the position that a distinctive kind of philosophical inquiry was the foundation of the sciences and made the sciences possible. (Though phenomenology might be better classified under separation than under conflict — it depends on the particular phenomenologist, perhaps.)
(3) dialogue — the sciences benefit from the reflective analysis practiced in philosophy for refining their basic concepts and assumptions, and philosophy benefits from the new empirical discoveries that science discloses. So philosophers can contribute the metaphysics of physics or the epistemology of scientific inquiry, for example.
(4) integration — a fully philosophical science and a scientific philosophy.
I would position myself somewhere between (3) and (4) — I think that the philosophy is most successful when it creates new conceptions that give voice to the problems and opportunities disclosed by new scientific discoveries*, e.g. re-conceiving the concepts of selfhood and autonomy in light of neuroscience, or in re-conceiving the concepts of matter and causation in light of quantum physics.
* though not just new scientific discoveries — new kinds of artistic creations and political relations can and should also prompt the philosopher to create new concepts.
I’m responding to a comment in another thread. I think my response fits better here.
Kantian Naturalist
Well, of course there are other kinds of knowledge, though I’m not at all sure that knowledge can be easily carved up into kinds.
This is easy for me, because I reject the idea that knowledge is justified true belief. I don’t see knowledge as facts.
There are, of course, scientific facts. And knowing scientific facts counts as knowledge. But notice that the word “knowing” is left there. The facts, by themselves, are not knowledge. It takes knowing them before they are relevant to knowledge.
There is scientific knowledge. But there is more to scientific knowledge than knowing scientific facts. Scientific knowledge also requires knowing and understanding scientific concepts, and knowing something about how to look at the kinds of questions that scientists consider.
Getting back to the current topic, and the role of philosophy, I would like to see it engaged with questions such as “What is a fact?” and “What is knowing.”
Science often comes across, particularly to non-scientists, as having an appearance of being very mechanistic. Yet most people don’t see themselves as mechanisms. I would like to see philosophy attempting to bridge that chasm. Religion might claim to do that bridging, but it is a miserable failure at it.
I will stir the pot by asserting that since Copernicus, science has been driving the concepts addressed by philosophy.
I would assert and offer up for discussion the following:
1. Copernicus et al irrevocably changed man’s place in the universe.
2. Darwin added a new concept of causation. He (and Adam Smith) introduced the concept of systems steered by feedback.
3. The Copenhagen gang changed forever our understanding of matter and causation.
These fruits of empiricism changed the dialog and changed what philosophy is about. You simply can’t be a serious thinker without wondering WTF quantum phenomena are about. (And you can’t really contribute anything useful to the discussion without years of training.)
Since this forum tends to be about biology, I have to point out that anyone aspiring to be a serious thinker also needs to have a deep understanding of evolution.
I guess there are still a few holdouts on the Copernicus thing, but 400 years seems to be sufficient for cultures to absorb new ideas.
Perhaps it would be simpler if I asked what philosophers think about between turning out the light and falling asleep.
Excluding things not suitable for a family forum.
I will give Mung credit for giving what seems to be an answer to this.
I’ll add technology.
Our relation with the world and with each other has been unalterably changed by the existence of smart phones. This sort of effect of technology goes back at least as far as the Gutenberg press.
Suppose humanity disappeared from the cosmos, would that alter what is true or what is knowledge? I don’t see how that it could, but perhaps some philosophical arguments for truth and/or knowledge are necessarily human-dependent?
If no sapient life had ever emerged anywhere in the cosmos, the facts that make physics and chemistry and biology true would still be there, although no one could appreciate them as facts. So there wouldn’t be anything known , even with all the same knowable facts.
There are various philosophical arguments for a stronger notion of “mind-dependence”, but I don’t find any of them compelling.
petrushka,
Between turning out the lights and going to sleep, I don’t think about anything that is suitable for a family-friendly forum.
Kantian Naturalist,
Depends on what level of sapience you are excluding. In my example, it’s only humanity. Many animals would continue to learn hunting/gathering strategies and techniques from their parents, so some things would still be knowable and known, yes?
That all seems right to me. And I think it’s a mark of successful philosophizing that a lot of metaphysics has become scientific. Or, put otherwise: the very idea of science consist in the idea that our metaphysical speculations can be empirically tested. Here’s a flashy slogan: science is the synergy of metaphysics and technology.
I also think that the real innovations in philosophizing occur in response to breakthroughs in science (though not only in science): Descartes in response to Galileo, Kant in response to Newton, Dewey in response to Darwin, Bergson and Carnap in response to Einstein and Bohr, and so on.
Today there’s a lot of really fascinating philosophy taking place in the philosophy of neuroscience (including neuroethics and neuropolitics). I haven’t moved into that area yet, because I’m still fleshing out my account of the transcendental conditions of agency and freedom, but I think it’s really fascinating.
Good — I hadn’t caught that! Yes, I have no trouble accepting that many animals know things — in addition to, say, perceiving them. (Yet another reason for me to reject the JTB model of knowledge.) What I would say, though, is that in the absence of an acquired natural language, they cannot know that they know.
I don’t know what to say about insects or fish — it seems weird to me to say that a minnow or a fly knows anything — but that might be an unjustified mammaliocentric prejudice.
A population of fish knows things. And learns things.
Kantian Naturalist,
What I would say, though, is that in the absence of an acquired natural language, they cannot know that they know.
This is known as animal metacognition, and the evidence is suggestive but thin (a contrary view, Meta-cognition in Animals: A Skeptical Look). On a broader philosophical level, animal cognition is said to be in a golden age, and again it appears too early to dismiss awareness of knowledge by animals.
So for the sake of argument, suppose one or more non-human species can know that they know a small set of behaviors or bits of information — would it have any practical affect on philosophy outside of (human) mind-dependence?
I think it would show that we don’t really know what knowledge is. And that is absolutely fascinating!
I agree with Lizzy that the word “is” causes more trouble than it is worth. If I can say that with a straight face.
I would say that if you reverse the order of choices KN offers, you are accurately describing the history of Philosophy and Science to today.
1.)Intergration: You could even say that up until western sciences recent history, Philosophical (Spiritual) Dominance would be more descriptive, a grudging intergration maybe. ( Pre-15th Cent?)
2.)Dialogue:Seeing the writing on the wall, Philosophy, realised Natural Philosophy wasn’t going away, it would be best to soften the new heresies. (1500- Indust-Rev?)
3.)Conflict: Very accurate in describing the period post-18th Cent. (Dialogue and Conflict overlap, all the periods do to some extent.)
4.)Total Seperation: We are here today. It is rather interesting to see the roles entirely reversed with philosophy clamoring for a place at the ‘relevancy table’, and to be heard, with science now largely oblivious. This is not a nasty vindictive obliviousness, merely a natural evolution in thought.
Today we call philosophy by different names; contemplation, reflection, cogitation, reverie, rumination, to ponder…etc
Is this secular ‘transcendentalism’ coming from a non-theist/naturalist? Please excuse, KN, if you fail to convince of competence or resonance. Immanuel Kant at least appeared and claimed to belive in (a) God. Yet you’ve emptied Barbour’s model of religiousity in this thread, which of course speaks again of your anti-religion partialities.
van Bakel’s attempt is tres ‘western.’ Yet philosophy lives large in the East. (A recent encounter with visiting Chinese students in Moscow confirms this.) One simply cannot avoid spirituality in India, yet this site of skeptics has no tongue for such talk.
Thus, I don’t accept the ‘total separation’ thesis (while the appropriate integration is between science, philosophy and theology/worldview). This is just an example of western decadence (that will of course be denied), as a sell-out to the ideology of scientism (which will again be denied by those who implicitly endorse it).
KN willingly plays into this scientistic decadence with his preferred (active) belittlement of philosophy to sciences. That’s a sad state of affairs imo, which I’m glad not to be witnessing on a daily basis in N. American or western European higher education establishments. There are much more welcome and inspiring pastures to tread into the future thinking and living globally…
Gregory, you seem to be hiding something under a bushel.
I´m not sure that this is a question off choose one position or other, or make a personal mix. If we agree on the meaning of the words, 1 is true. Then the others tree are only possible depending of what ” a priori” position you have. As what is science and what can answer science needs an ” a priori” definition you will have 2, 3 or 4 depending on your philosophy.
Example: The statements petrushka made
1. Copernicus et al irrevocably changed man’s place in the universe.
2. Darwin added a new concept of causation. He (and Adam Smith) introduced the concept of systems steered by feedback.
3. The Copenhagen gang changed forever our understanding of matter and causation.
Are valid or has differents meaning according your philosophy and will lead to a conflict, dialogue or integration with your science.
Once again, Gregory insults those who decline to accept his unsupported assertions. Amusing, given his thin-skinned reactions when people respond to him in kind. I am forcibly reminded of a passage from Heinlein’s book The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:
Blas,
I listed several episodes in science, the first two of which were opposed by most religious people. Heliocentrism has been integrated into religion because the evidence became overwhelming. Quantum theory seems not to cause problems for religion.
That leaves evolution, which seems to be resisted.
So when I hear words like scientism or biologism or naturalism or materialism, I tend to hear “I’m not descended from monkeys.” Or, at the very least, “I’m specially created for a purpose.”
Yes, I agree.
And now we have Gregory telling us how important is theology.
As previously said, I am taking Gregory as a source of entertainment.
If you really understood Kant, you’d appreciate that his conception of agency and freedom is completely formal — it just specifies the general features that any system must have in order to do what we do. (Isn’t this the whole point of the Paralogisms, after all? — to show that the original unity of apperception has no entailments for metaphysics?) Whereas I’m interested in specifying the transcendental account with an eye on “implementation” — or, as I prefer to put, why transcendentally-specified conceptual roles must have empirically-specifiable role-players.
And it’s surely misleading to say that “Kant at least appeared and claimed to belive in (a) God.” Kant held that (1) there is no empirical evidence for the existence of God; (2) there is no logical, a priori argument for existence of God; (3) it is necessary to believe in God in order to chose duty over happiness.
I actually like Barbour’s model of the science/religion problem, which is why it struck me as a plausible model for thinking about the science/philosophy problem, too. Presumably the four-fold distinction also holds with respect to philosophy and religion. I lean towards “integration” of science and philosophy and towards “dialogue” between science/philosophy and religion. I’m much more inclined towards a scientific metaphysics than I am towards a purely a priori metaphysics or a theological metaphysics — though I wouldn’t accept scientific metaphysics without some hefty re-orientation towards a pragmatist theory of concepts that would not be warmly received in many quarters.
Wait, is that the same Neil Rickert, who recently wrote “Philosophers, as a group, tend to look at things from what I consider a[n] intelligent design perspective” and then refused to back up or even explain what he said here at TSZ? Oh, right, that guy. Credible? Not really. Not much of a source of entertainment, just misinformation and anti-philosophy.
Any particular reason you can’t link to the actual place where the statement was made? So that readers could have the complete statement in context.?
Heh. I knew this much was from Gregory the moment I scanned it, even though I had paged down in such a way that the poster’s name wasn’t visible to me. (I did scroll back up to check, and surprise, surprise, I was right.)
How predictable, Gregory. How sad.
I will give you credit, though, for deciding not to be unnecessarily rude today by forcing us to wade through your tedious non-blockquoted replies. So that’s an improvement, at least.
Dare we hope for more?
To save Gregory some of his oh-so-valuable time, I’ll copy his excuse for not answering from the other thread:
See, Gregory is important. Because reasons. Unlike you little people, who obviously aren’t important enough to deserve a specific answer to a specific question. You’re supposed to be grateful that Gregory deigns to tell you – at great length! – that he’s too busy to respond direct!y.
So, know your place, Petrushka, and stop challenging Gregory with questions. A little tug of your forelock when Gregory enters would not go amiss, either.
petrushka, the original is linked right at the top in the thread I linked to. Rickert is still blubbering mad about it, quite obviously. He takes shots at me as often as possible because what he said was just absurd and he cannot back it up – this is blame the messenger vengeance by Rickert at TSZ.
Was a take-back in order? Yeah, probably. Was Neil humble enough to do it? No, he just blamed me again and again for ‘misinterpreting’ his words, which are as clear as day.
Would you trust a mathematician-computer ‘science’ anti-philosophy skeptic or someone trained in philosophy on topics involving philosophy? Don’t trust either of us if you don’t want to accept that Abrahamic believers are/can be philosophically competent and coherent. If you just focus on the ‘skeptic’ part, then it makes sense to embrace Neil Rickert and his disenchanted worldview (which he won’t talk about with any more clarity than his ID philosophy claims).
hotshoe’s regular hating is deplorable. Just don’t think about what ‘transcendental’ means outside of a secular context, as KN pushes it. It might get scary real, rather than something to be mocked without knowing.
Since we are into provocative statements, I’ll say that a lot of philosophy looks to me like apologetics.
In particular the tendency to pounce on remarks as if they were sacred (or profane) text, and that defeating the text is somehow important.
I do not read philosophy, except as it occurs in evolution discussions, but I would say that ID advocates tend to talk more about philosophy than do evolution advocates. I take that as a tacit admission that they are defeated on the science and have moved on to pounding the table.
I personally think evolution says absolutely nothing about the meaning of life, and I find it rather odd that anyone would attempt to argue about scientific findings from the point of view that some finding or another would change one’s morality or one’s attitude toward life.
“evolution says absolutely nothing about the meaning of life” – petrushka
Evolutionary theory, in some peoples’ minds/hands/words is used to try to say something. But I’m glad to see you say that quite honestly and openly, petrushka.
“I do not read philosophy” – petrushka
Neither does hotshoe. Neither does cubist. This is an internet place to display that one is skeptical for the sake of being skeptical. What enlightenment or inspiration is intended at TSZ, other than simply opposing IDism (and YECism, which isn’t worth the finger-energy to write)? We’ve all got opposition to IDism, but nothing really seems to be changing N. America these days re: evolutionism, creationism & IDism.
I’m 68 years old and still waiting for evidence that religious scholars have anything interesting to say.
[my emphasis]
Credible? Hahahahahaha. Gregory thinks it is an open question whether we can accept Neil’s credibility in regards to Neil’s statement:
Gregory, dear, that statement is simply not open to challenge on the basis of credibility; no more than you could challenge my statement “I watch my neighbors for entertainment”.
You know that. Perhaps you should let your hurt pride recover first, before you say something as silly next time.
hotshoe, you have the depth and compassion of a sole.
You don’t know that, unless you had access to Neil’s internal state, which you don’t. So I won’t call you a liar, because that’s against the rules here, but I will point out that you are making truth claims of knowledge you absolutely cannot make in reality.
You don’t know that, unless you had access to Neil’s internal state, which you don’t. So I won’t call you a liar, because that’s against the rules here, but I will point out that you are making truth claims of knowledge you absolutely cannot make in reality.
You don’t know whether Neil feels “humble” or not, nor whether he acts on the basis of his feeling humble or not, unless you had access to Neil’s internal state, which you don’t. So I won’t call you a liar, because that’s against the rules here, but I will point out that you are making truth claims of knowledge you absolutely cannot make in reality.
You don’t know that hotshoe is “hating”, unless you had access to hotshoe’s internal state, which you don’t. So I won’t call you a liar, because that’s against the rules here, but I will point out that you are making truth claims of knowledge you absolutely cannot make in reality.
So far,you’re 0 for 4 on truth in your reply, Gregory. Care to try again, more careful with the truth next time?
Thank you, Gregory, I’m sure you mean well.
Just being honest based on empty soft-attacks. Care to come out from behind your sock-puppet and say the same things with your actual name and identity behind it, ‘hotshoe’? Didn’t think so.
“I’m 68 years old and still waiting for evidence that religious scholars have anything interesting to say.”
Pope Francis has said quite a few interesting things. Almost everyone I’ve met says this and is ready to talk about it, whether they are Catholic or not. Wouldn’t want to ‘reduce’ him to a ‘religious scholar.’ But sure, he does that too.
I’m with you, Petrushka, and you don’t have many years on me. I’ve studied religion and science since I was a child and I’ve no evidence that any theologian has added value, ever. Theology is not a legitimate field of study, it’s an artform like opera or Kabuki theater. Yes, it can be fascinating and even life-changing to fall in love with opera and devote oneself to mastering the body of knowledge within that art, but don’t try to fool the rest of us that it’s important with a capital I.
Jerry Coyne puts it less nicely than I do, and of course, I approve his blunt language:
[my emphasis]
Jerry Coyne, gotta love ‘im.
I wouldn’t say that. Research continues, and ID continues to move the goalposts.
I don’t have a source, but I heard the Catholic Church is considering teaching evolution in Sunday School. In another 250 years, religion and evolution might be reconciled.
I’ll just copy Gregory here:
I wonder what answer Gregory would wish us to infer from his current behavior …
Yes, he does.
In my world, we call that “damning him with faint praise.”
People who have trouble finding meaning in their lives either don’t have kids or don’t like kids.
Science, despite human foibles, at least seems to eventually converge.
Religion generally fragments into thousands of warring sects hell-bent on killing each other except for the fact that secular laws act to restrain them.
It appears from Gregory’s “philosophical sectarianism” that philosophy fragments into warring “schools” that would be hell-bent on killing each other except for the fact that, without any knowledge of science, none of them can figure out how to make any tools work.
While we are being provocative, is it acceptable to ask if philosophy or theology makes progress over time? Are there any major issues that have been settled in the sense that Galileo settled the orbital configuration of the planets?
Have philosophers converged on any solutions to major problems?
Interesting that you ask this, right after I’ve been reading Chris Hallquist’s blog. His most recent post is on The Plantinga Clique and the difficulty of informing theologically-based philosophers that, no, they have not settled some question definitively after all; no matter what consensus their narrow circle has reached, (and no matter what quotemines they use) other philosophers do not concede to their answer.
I followed most of the links in Hallq’s post. Phew, what a lot of work. From the evidence, the answer to your question appears “No, they have not converged on any solutions to major problems”.
Of course, other philosophers may have a different answer to your question, “Yes, we have definitively settled problems A, B, C, D, but not E, F …”
I dunno, though, I can’t think of any that have been settled since I was born.
As a minor professional courtesy, I’d appreciate it if we didn’t talk about philosophy and theology in the very same breath.
Now: have philosophers converged on any solutions to major problems? Definitely not! But so what? Neither have artists!
I don’t think of philosophy as contributing to our knowledge of the world, but rather as contributing to our self-understanding in light of (among other things) what we know about the world.
Aristotle was spurred by the ancient Greek atomists to reconceptualize Plato’s concept of “form” (eidos, idea) in terms of the form/matter distinction. Descartes was spurred by Galileo (among others) to invent the mind/body problem. Today the mind/body problem has been replaced by “the person/brain problem” (or something like that).
In science, we solve problems and answer questions; in philosophy, as I (and other pragmatists see it) we make ‘progress’ (if it is that) by getting over old problems and inventing new ones.
I concede that philosophy may be a useful mental exercise, and that people trained in philosophy may have verbal skills that I lack.
But aside from being introverted, I am a social creature whose meaning is derived from interaction with people.
And if I want to contribute to civilization or culture or welfare, I will analyze problems and proposed solutions empirically. I can’t think of anything but bad things resulting from political philosophy, be it left, right or whatever.
petrushka,
Well, there’s definitely no straightforward causal route from anything a philosopher says to anything happening in the real world. But there are various indirect indicators — for example, the basic idea in the League of Nations was suggested by Kant’s essay , “Perpetual Peace”.
The idea of “crimes against humanity,” which is a fascinating and much-needed legal category, was invented (I believe) by Hannah Arendt in her coverage of the Eichmann trial, and her coverage is deeply informed by her study of Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Heidegger. (Interestingly, however, Arendt refused to call herself a philosopher — she regarded philosophers as being much more systematic than she was. She called herself a political thinker.)
There was an old episode of “The West Wing” in which one of the characters justifies the welfare state using John Rawls’s “veil of ignorance” argument.
Jurgen Habermas, arguably the best-known living philosopher, has been very active in German reunification and in debates about the E.U. I have no doubt that an expert on Habermas — which I am not — could explain the connection between his work as a public intellectual and his contributions to speech-act theory and the philosophy of history.
Martha Nussbaum also comes to mind as a philosopher who has used her work in Aristotelian conceptions of human flourishing to make a real-world difference. Her work on Aristotle helped the economist Amartya Sen develop the capabilities approach.
I’ll mention other examples as they come to mind.
I’m not sure I want to give credit to philosophy for the League of nations, any more than I blame Darwin for social Darwinism or for Nazism. Was the League a success?
To the extent that I have a political philosophy it is based entirely on wanting a decent environment for my descendants.
Getting to particulars, as a former social worker, I think the welfare state has perverse incentives and is counterproductive. I am not a cold-hearted-son-of-a-bitch. I just think most social and educational policies are counterproductive.
My father was a state health officer. He looked at health statistics and set policies with the intention of improving the statistics.
One way that social policy is set is to measure the delivery of services. You might, for example, measure the percentage of children receiving immunizations.
But my dad was more interested in the number of people getting sick, and that was his measure of success. He never lectured me on this stuff, but I picked it up from the way he talked.
I’m wondering if any political philosophers in your ken think like this or have proposed policies steered by relevant feedback.
Take a long enough view, and everything we humans have ever done is a failure. The League of Nations was replaced by the United Nations, and one may certainly hope that the UN will eventually be replaced by a better system. So it goes.
I’m not exactly a fan of the welfare-state myself; I’m a social democrat. I only mentioned that as an example of how a philosophical argument can be used with real-world effect.
John Dewey thought about “intelligence” that way. He was much more interested in “intelligence” than in what philosophers called “reason,” and thought education (and also democracy and science) were basically about promoting the use of intelligence to solve real-world problems.
Which brings me to another point: Dewey was one of the last major American philosophers who was also a committed public intellectual. Since then, American philosophers have become much more “professionalized”. We’re not committed to serving as public intellectuals because that kind of activity does not count towards tenure and promotion, and the research and teaching expectations — esp. research — are extremely high. Very few of us have the time and energy to be public intellectuals while meeting the research and teaching expectations for tenure and promotion at our institutions.
Now, why is the demand for research so high for philosophy and the other humanities? I actually think that the research expectation for the humanities is extremely harmful to the quality of thought and to the role of the humanities in society. We would be of far better use to society if we put our energy into teaching and community service. Our research isn’t that valuable. I’m serious; it really isn’t. Much of what’s published is bullshit. And that’s really bad for what it means to be a philosopher or literary scholar. It corrupts the intellectual integrity of the practice and gives aid and comfort to those already disposed to heap scorn upon us.
The very heart of the problem, as I see it, is a kind of scientism that hasn’t been discussed here at all: the idea that the hallmark of substantive intellectual labor is modeled off of the natural sciences. In the natural sciences, it makes perfect sense to measure the success of a research agenda by the empirical results generated. (How else would one do it, after all?) Although this process is also vulnerable to corruption — the politics of grant-getting and peer-review come to mind — the basic idea is sound.
Whereas that is not the case in philosophy. A philosopher need only write one book in her career to make her mark, if it’s a really good article that takes her ten years to write. We philosophers accepted a standard of research productivity modeled off of the sciences, and it’s a poisoned pill. The model is now completely entrenched in the university system, because professors have also ceded university governance to professional administrators with no competence in education or disciplined inquiry. A dean or provost these days usually doesn’t understand the difference between ten articles produced in molecular biology and ten article produced in Shakespeare studies — ten is ten, and quantity is the only thing that the professional administrators understand.
So even if there were a movement among philosophers and humanities scholars generally to revise the tenure and promotion standards so that teaching and community service counted for more than research, that movement would almost certainly be used to eliminate positions and funding. The crisis of the humanities in the States and UK is very real — I’m not sure about western Europe. Interestingly, though, humanities jobs are rapidly growing in China, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. I’d take one myself, but I’m committed to living in the States for personal reasons.
I’m going to step into some deep water.
There’s an old adage that figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.
From that I derive the notion that mathematics is useful, but that is shares with the science of chemistry to potential to be beneficial or harmful.
I would propose that philosophy has the same potentials. Political philosophy contributed to the American Constitution, and also to the regime of Stalin.
Speaking only for myself, I hold people accountable, not isms. When I look at the dreams and promises of politicians, I look not at the intentions, but at the systems being proposed and whether the systems appear to be responsive to feedback.
My favorite whipping horse is the war on drugs. Here’s a classic example of noble intentions harnessed to a counterproductive system.
I would hope that philosophers who attempt to engage the world (isn’t economics called the worldly philosophy) would understand how to design self-correcting systems. Unfortunately, I see little or no discussion of this in public discourse.
I’m suspicious of how “noble” the intentions behind the war on drugs was — I’m more inclined to see it as cynical exploitation of white Americans racism for the benefit of the prison-industrial complex from the very beginning. In any event, that’s what it has become.
Heilbroner called economics “the worldly philosophy”. I don’t know where this notion comes from. Though I think the evidence is pretty good the economics is a pseudo-science, As the old joke goes, “the only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”
In fact, there are philosophers who work with scientists (esp. computer scientists) who do know a lot about the design of self-correcting systems. They don’t participate in public discussions because they are too busy actually doing their research.