Understanding understanding

The recent announcement about the tentative discovery of the Higgs boson have prompted many journalists and scientists to engage in philosophical speculation of what it means to understand something. It seems that many people (even Feynman has said he and other theoretical physicists don't "understand" it) still say they don't understand the nature of quantum phenomenon despite their grasp of the equations which describe them with unprecedented precision. But why do they still think that? journalist Robert Wright has written (and here) about the Higgs boson recently and has remarked about his lack of understanding of its quantum nature after it has been repeatedly explained to him by physicists and science journalists alike. He now takes a philosophical approach to the problem evoking a passage in Wittgenstein's PI.

However, there may be other passages in W's writing that directly relate to what it means to understand something. I can't recall off the top of my head these passages but I did write one comment regarding some at least W inspired thoughts on what it means to "understand".

There are probably more relevant Wittgenstein passages in the PI or other of his works regarding what it means to "understand" something. Is it simply the ability to explain some concept with precision? Well, physicists can certainly do that with mathematical precision! So there's some other element(s) one may reason. Perhaps that other element is something like a loss of a "weird" feeling. So because experts and laymen alike still have this weird feeling when thinking about the nature of quantum phenomenon, we say that we don't completely understand it. But perhaps this recalcitrant weird feeling we have is simply a cultural relic, something that is a result of cultural (or socio-linguistic) biases. 

It would be interesting to test this out. Maybe people from other cultures, cultures that are perhaps more comfortable with things like ambiguity, vagueness, indeteterminancy, etc, such as many Asian cultures will not have this bias and see quantum mechanics as "natural" and will say that they fully understand it once they understand the mathematical descriptions. 

This understanding of understanding as it related to quantum mechanics s what I think W will endorse.

When a physicist or Robert Wright says he doesn't "understand" the nature of Higgs bosons or that it "make no sense" could it be that they only "understand" something maybe W's remarks on rule following will shed some light? One interpretation of W's ideas on rule following is that there has to be a further element other than rule following itself, that is, besides the applied ability to follow that rule to understanding rules of language. On some interpretations of W's remarks, that void is a social element. The social element, as far as I can tell, has to do with social expectations of what other people expect. So it's not enough to follow some rule (formal mathematical or informal linguistic rule e.g.) but there needs to be some expectation that society will accept your explanation of your rule following. In our culture, since quantum mechanics is so counter intuitive to so many, it may just be this element of a lack of social acceptance that is the missing piece to truly understanding quantum mechanics. But notice that this is a cultural bias contingent on the culture and times we live in. Maybe as more of society come to accept quantum mechanics, it will seem less weird and hence, at least according to this interpretation, people will be less likely to say that they don't "really understand" quantum mechanics?    

Crazy metaphysics?

Eric Schwitzgebel thinks that metaphysical theories are doomed for weirdness (he calls this "crazyism." Also see here). He gives lots of examples. Much of his examples really are of famous weird metaphysics. Some of the most famous arguments in metaphysics are for really odd conclusions (modal realism, panpsychism, ontological nihilism, unrestricted mereology, etc).

But why pick on metaphysics? It's not clear to me that metaphysics is any weirder (at least when it comes to a comparison with "common sense" assumptions than many claims in ethics and epistemology. Many utilitarians such as Singer and Unger argued that we are just as obligated to donate every last penny of expendable ready cash in our possession to the needy as we are in saving a drowning child. They even go further and argue that we may be obligated to steal for those that don't donate as much we we do to give to the needy. Kant famously argued that the moral obligation against lying is so strong that we ought not lie even to save an innocent life. That's crazy.

Many skeptics have argued that we don't know many of the things we think we know. Ratnakirti argued for solipsism based on epistemological arguments, for example. There may be many other equally famous examples from these two branches of philosophy or other non metaphysics branches that are equally or more weird. All these examples show that weirdness is common to these other areas of philosophy as well. It may be that metaphysics is a little more likely to be weird than other branches of philosophy but I don't think there's a large difference in this regard.

Coyne on the Templeton Prize

The Templeton Fund scholarship offered a prestigious prize of about 80 thousand bucks per year over 2 years to study free will and God's omniscience and this was awarded to a philosopher at the Uni. of Riverside. Well, the biologist Jerry Coyne went ballistic. He displayed the kind of arrogance towards philosophy that many non philosophers have and which I have mentioned elsewhere. You can read his rants here and here. I guess some of it is jealousy and some of it is just plain ignorance of philosophy. I responded to his argument in a blog defending the Templeton research project.

I haven’t read Coyne’s responses to all his critics but I did read the notorious first anti-philosophy blog and one of its follow-ups. Let’s call his argument what it is: silly.

He may have elaborated on it so that it is a better argument but I just can’t see any way to make it sound. 

His main argument simply seems to be that we need to think deeply about non existent beings such as god and all philosophical problems related to god. This reasoning seems to suggest that non existent beings are irrelevant to the pursuit of anything worthwhile such as the pursuit of truth. 

But that assumption is clearly false. Examples from science, a subject that Coyne should be familiar with shows this falsity. Scientists make use of all sorts of fictional objects (in clear-eyed understanding that they do not existent) in their thought experiments. Things and events they know to be non existent. 

Just a few famous examples from physics: 

-Newton’s bucket. Newton knew that our universe does not contain a single object (the bucket filled with liquid). But the thought experiment illustrated interesting points that advanced science. 

-Maxwell’s Demon. Again, Maxwell knew that there is no such demon; that wasn’t the point. the thought experiment illustrated interesting points that advanced science. 

-Schrodinger’s Cat. Again, no physicist takes such a being seriously. It is merely meant to demonstrate a point about the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics. 

-Objects with mass riding on a beam of light. Used by Einstein when he fully knew that such actions are impossible.

-Time machines. Most theoretical physicists do not believe they are physically possible and yet there are plethora of papers in physics journals using these fictional objects to demonstrate points about our very real world. 

Additionally, there are also objects that are very well possibly non existent but worth considering anyway such as strings and even time (which may be illusory according to many physicists today). But if these things turn out to be not real, they would still be considered useful fictions that advanced science. The conceptual tools developed in thinking about them makes it worthwhile to develop even if it turns out they don’t exist. 

The most obvious example of a useful fiction is the mathematical world assuming physicalism is true as most scientists (and I’d imagine Coyne) would proclaim allegiance to that doctrine. Numbers may not exist as such but they are useful for the advancement of knowledge. 

But Coyne may respond that in all these cases, there is some criterion or criteria distinguishing the putatively non real but useful objects from their non-useful counterparts. But then the onus is on him to show what that criteria is (I’m sure philosophers of science would love to know. What a time-saver for scientists that would be!). 

Coyne may respond that no such criteria is necessary for it is just plain obvious that imaginary things like god are too silly to be useful to advance knowledge about our world while imaginary things like rotating buckets in otherwise empty universes, Maxwell demons, etc are not. But because his intuition is not shared among many others including philosophers, his intuition shouldn’t be taken any more seriously. 

Here’s a more positive reason Coyne is wrong. The point of the Templeton project is free will in the face of certain kinds of certain knowledge (of future events, etc). The notion of god is merely a rhetorical device. 

It may very well be possible that one day technology will allow prediction to be very accurate so that we can have what was once thought to be god-like epistemic faculties. If that is the case, it is useful to think deeply about free-will and moral responsibility in counterfactual terms to illustrate the conceptual structure of the concepts now important to us. God is only used derivatively to analyse the important concepts that need elucidating.

Coyne misses the whole boat in thinking the god is the primary object to be analysed in this project; it’s not. Free will, moral responsibility, the nature of time and knowledge about time is, things that even a scientists should admit are well worth investigating. If fictional objects helps facilitate that venture as Newton’s bucket, Maxwell’s Demon, etc has for science, then so be it.

Philosophy and Progress

There's some kind of conference at Harvard in conjunction with Australian National University on the topic of progress in philosophy. See here for video of a talk on the subject between Jason Stanley and Carlin Romano and here and here for comments. Romano is not a philosopher but a journalist. Though I think Stanley could have done a much better job at presenting his case, Romano's talk was atrocious. He displayed incredible arrogance and ignorance. His ignorance is understandable for a layman, even one that occasionally dabbles in philosophy as Romano reviews philosophy books for a living. but that coupled with his shear arrogance is what made so many philosophers react to his talk in such a harsh manner (see Leiter's blog for some comments and reactions). It's like the Writer Karl Krauss said Journalists are people with "no ideas and the ability to express them" was made for Romano.

For a while, I didn't think the Romanos of the world deserved responses from philosophers. Such ferocious and recalcitrant ignorance should just be ignored. The literal and figurative mic should just be muted. But I realized that there are so many of these types that the profession of philosophy need to respond to them and take them seriously because policy is dependent on the views of the masses, ignorant ones as well as more informed, more humble ones. If voices like Romano's are amplified and that is what people hear, they will be convinced of philosophy's alleged limitations because they don't hear the other side and if philosophers don't do a good job of defending philosophical practice in the academy, we're the one's that ultimately loose out. That's not to say that philosophy doesn't have any real limitations, all disciplines seeking to acquire knowledge is limited by a host of things or else the human race would have the omniscience of gods. But the criticisms from the Romanos of the world are wholly baseless. What defects there are in reality are not focused on. Instead, false defects are sold to people who don't know any better. That's why I think Stanley's clumsy and flippant response was inappropriate and I think he could have given better examples (to which I will say a little more later) to argue his case in defense of philosophy from the idiotic criticisms of Romano.

Now for my take on philosophical progress. I noticed that few people in the video or commenting on it even tried to make clear what is meant by "progress." Maybe they did but that segment wasn't included in the videos I saw on this conference.

I take what people mean by philosophical progress to be ambiguous between these two main meanings. 1. progress means getting closer to the truth. That is philosophical theories and ideas get more accurate as representations of reality as time goes by (presumably like science does). 2. Philosophy is useful for society. It plays important functional roles.

Now the second meaning, if true, may go some ways to support the first. Consider mathematics. One of the principle arguments that mathematics is true in the robust sense of true and not in some figurative, fictional sense, is that it has proved so useful. It is very applicable to the sciences and thus that goes to show that it is likely true. This is the famous indipensability argument made famous by Quine and Putnam. Because we can not dispense with mathematics and mathematics makes use of existence claims (eg. there is a smallest prime number) a fortiori, there exists at least some numbers Quine and Putnam have argued. Similarly with physics. How do we know relativity theory is true? Well, there's the empirical evidence but also our GPS systems depend on the theory to be true. Same with quantum mechanics. Our technologies depend on QM to be true or at least reasonably accurate a description of the world. I will argue that philosophy also fills indispensable roles in human society much as mathematics and physics.

But first, the claim that philosophy gets closer at the truth. I will answer affirmatively and say that it does get closer at the truth. Philosophical theories become more nuanced as time goes by. Philosophers have a much better conceptual grasp of things, our view of the world become more fine grained, as distinctions are made. This point was made by some speakers including Stanley. By getting more of a detailed and complex picture of our world (conceptual refinements), we are in much better shape to make accurate theories. Philosophy does do that. Philosophy also consistently finds errors in its own thinking by finding assumptions and refuting them. By making conceptual distinctions, we avoid equivocation fallacies and jettison many previous held false beliefs. Take the centuries held belief by philosophers that knowledge is justified true belief. This has been held for centuries by almost all philosophers but since the early 60s, there was almost a consensus formed over night that that notion is either wrong, or at least needs to be refined (which philosophers have done). Now there is still much to do to understand what knowledge is but philosophers no longer make the same mistakes because those mistakes have been exposed since then (by the counter examples given by Gettier in 1962).

Knowledge is one among many many examples one could find.

Now on the to second claim that philosophy is useful. This will be even easier to prove than the direct claim that it gets closer to the truth. I mentioned above that its usefulness is also evidence of its truthfulness so what I will say here may also be added as further evidence that the first claim is true assuming that indispensability arguments are sound.

I already posted on the contribution philosophy has had throughout society here. Philosophy is indispensable for society. Our legal system depend on it. Many jurisprudential journals liberally cite works from philosophers. Philosophy has heavily shaped the legal system in the US and in Europe and also in international law (especially human rights law). Questions of moral responsibility, free will, causation, rights, personhood, etc play vital roles in our legal system.

The abortion and euthenasia debates depend heavily on questions of personal identity. One of the most important decisions in 20th US history was Roe v. Wade. The courts were persuaded to rule as they did largely due to the influence of the metaphysician Judith Jarvis Thomson's famous paper in defense of abortion (among other philosophical arguments made).

Another far more recent example is the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision. This decision by the Pennsylvanian court struck down the Dover Pennsylvania Area School District's proposal to teach Intelligent Design in its high school. Justice John E. Jones III, in his opinion of the decision argued that the crucial testimonies from philosophers of science Christopher Pennock and Barbara Forrest was decisive in the decision showing that ID was 1. not science, 2. a disguised version of Creationism which has already been ruled by previous supreme court decisions to be unconstitutional when taught in science classes 3. that the motives of the ID proponents are to proselytize. The decision prohibited the teaching of ID in high school science classes and set a huge precedent for the rest of the country.

That's just two examples of some of the most important decisions in the US that have been crucially influenced by philosophical considerations but the examples can be multiplied.

Outside of law, we have the familiar examples I already talked about and also given in Stanley's talk with logic. The electronic and computer revolution could not have occurred but for developments in logic, a branch of philosophy. Also take decision theory which have influence many areas of the sciences such as economics, psychology and even AI. The first decision problem and a decision theoretic treatment of it was the very philosophical problem, Pascal's Wager.

We also have other influences such as the development of modern conceptions of democracy (Rawles being the most influential political theorist in the world for the last 30 years). Modern conceptions of economics (such as the development of the modern science of economics itself from the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith). The development of modern cognitive science (Stanley used this example in his talk) essentially sprung from the debates Fodor, Goldman and Searle had with each other during the late 60s. The scientific method itself, again by philosophy's insights was first developed.

So philosophy's influence on the world is not in dispute. It has drastically influenced our society and will always do so if we are to use the past as a guide.

I think one can find far more examples to support the claims I've made. These examples are off the top of my head. A little research and preparation would add substantially to these examples.

Now my comments on Romano's talk specifically. He seems to give little to no direct reasons, for his claims, that philosophy is "fraudulent." Most of his criticisms are stylistic criticisms (such as claiming that philosophers write in ways that are too hard to understand or that they should not have such a long acknowledgement section in their books). Because this says nothing about the content of philosophy, I will not address it (I think it's simply false, analytic philosophers tend to be quite clear writers for the most part).

As for his non stylistic criticisms, Romano also says that there should be far more collaboration from philosophy departments with other departments. I agree but Romano puts the blame wholly on philosophers for what he claims is the insular and arrogant nature of philosophy departments. In my experience, philosophers are the most likely to want to collaborate with others and are the most open to seeing value in other departments. It is usually the other departments that need to be informed of the value of philosophy.

I mentioned in an earlier post that in most interdepartmental dialogues, the philosophers will almost inevitably know far more about the other disciplines than those in the other disciplines will know about philosophy (see here for an example). This is understandable as there is just about a philosophy of everything. So I agree that there should be more collaboration but I think most of what is prohibiting that constructive dialogue is the arrogance and ignorance seen in people from some other disciplines who don't know a lick about what philosophers are up to. Check out this, this and this just examples from the ignorance of physicists (though in recent years this seems to have started to change among physicists especially theoretical physicists due to the work of philosophers of science on the problem of time, e.g.).

Most telling of all in suggesting that it is Romano that is the problem and not philosophers ability to write or to come up with important insights is this: Romano mentions near the end that only philosophers understand the language they write in. That's an interesting admission. It says that philosophical writing is not by his lights, inherently unintelligible. But if Romano can't understand what philosophers are writing about, how does he know that it is fraudulent?

What I'd like to see from XPhi

I've talked about the (de)merits of XPhi here. I mentioned that there are potential philosophically important uses of X-Phi. Here's two relevant questions I'd like to see it answer and I think are of important philosophical relevance.

From what I argued in my previous posts (see here and here) about the knowledge argument, I'd like to see an experiment comparing survey responses of two linguistic groups: a group composed of native language speakers of a language that does not recognize the color red as a unique primary color but a shade of some supercolor such as "dark." The other group does recognize red as a primary color such as native English speakers. The speakers of the language that doesn't recognize red should be from a group that also has not had much influence from western culture or any cultures that partitions the color spectrum in a different way.

Of course that will be hard and in practice no culture is so discrete from the linguistic and cultural influence of others but there still are some cultures that are relatively isolated. Many speakers of the Trans-New Guinea languages are so isolated even today. They would be a good group to sample because as I've mentioned, they only recognize two basic primary colors (dark and light). They would serve as a good comparison group with Native English speakers, e.g. To test their intuitions on the knowledge argument compared to the control group of native English speakers would be a good way, in my view, to see if there is anything substantive and sound about it. Let's say that the non control group doesn't think that Mary learns anything new once she sees the apple for the first time, that would go in some ways in showing that it is conceivable Mary learns nothing new when she sees red for the first time. The knowledge argument, like many arguments in metaphysics and especially the philosophy of mind, are based on conceivability constraints. By showing that our own intuitions are culturally/linguistically biased, it may go in some way to show that it is conceivable that Mary did not learn anything new contra the early Jackson and his supporters.

Alternatively, I also am interested in some of the debate in the notion of civility. The concept and role of civility has taken on some popularity among moral philosophers in the last 20 years.

Brian Leiter has a nice short paper on role of civility in democracy. He argues that civility, or at least the demand for it from all parties in society, though important and justified in many social circumstances, can sometimes get in the way of democratically important process. I share this view. There is something deeply suspect about those who focus on and demand civility in the face of deeper and more important issues. I call these people the "Tone Nazis" or "Tone police" for their preoccupation with the tone of one's message instead of the content. I always felt that, in some sense, these people that demand unconditional civility to all parties, even the most irrational and dogmatic ones, were complicit in processes detrimental for a democratic society. They may also be, despite their good intentions, complicit in furthering some loathsome views by (unintentionally) giving them and their supporters respect they are not due.

Civility is not owed to many people who are obstinately ignorant in the face of reason. We sometimes think that everyone is owed some bear minimum civility but no one has really questioned if this is really the case. Many of us already have intuitions that civility is not owed to certain persons such as Nazis or rabid racists but why should it end there? Certainly there are lots of people that are as obstinately ignorant as Nazis and not owed any civility. Many people in society are probably not owed civility in all circumstances. A demand for civility toward those individuals holding intractable and unreasonable views either by them or those who may disagree but still think those opinions and those who hold them deserve some "respect" may hinder such fundamentally important democratic processes such as sincere and reasoned public discourse. If you take a look at many of the religious right or political rightwing fundies, they are almost without exception, incapable of responding to rational debate. I think that this common belief that we should have "respect" for completely unreasonable people and views even when they are held in the face of overwhelming counter evidence is a sign of a harmful postmodern influence in our society. Not all opinions are worthy of our epistemic esteem. Not all people are worthy of respect especially if those people hold on to their unreasonable opinions in the face of overwhelming counter evidence.

Leiter argues that for people like these, there is no obligation to be civil to them. The question that follows is whether it makes sense from a consequentialist perspective to be uncivil to them. That is, whether or not it will help them to change their ways by being uncivil to them. If it doesn't help them in making them more reasonable people (either not changing them or even making them less reasonable) then despite the fact that we don't owe them any civility, it may not make sense to be uncivil to them. But if it can be shown empirically that being uncivil actually works better in making them more tractable and reasonable, then it follows that we should act in uncivil ways towards them (since we are not obligated to treat them with civility).

I would like to see an experiment testing if uncivil (and there may be lots of indexes that measure uncivil behavior) behavior is more efficacious in getting unreasonable people to change their views in the face of overwhelming counter evidence. There are some studies already done showing that, for example, conservatives actually tend to hold on to their demonstrably false beliefs even more strongly when they have been disabused with the light of reality. See here. In these studies, the evidence is presented in a dispassionate way to test subjects. But if it is presented in a more passionate, direct, and perhaps what some would consider an uncivil medium, I wonder if conservatives would react the same way (that is, with an increased conviction in their original views instead of changing or updating their previous views to accommodate the new evidence). To what degree of uncivil behavior would change their views? Are all kinds of uncivil behavior equally efficacious or equally ineffective?

I suspect that for the most part, in cases where there is one person delivering the strongly or "uncivilly" worded counter argument, it will tend to be slightly more effective than dispassionate or respectfully worded messages of the same content in getting the intractable and unreasonable test subjects to come to their senses. There already some evidence to support this. This may be especially true if the message is repeated in the same tone. I also suspect that if there is a second party, a confederate of the deliverer of the message who explicitly backs up the message in equally a harsh tone, the test subject will be even more likely to change her views in the face of that message (in fact, I think she will be far more likely here than when there is just one person delivering the message). I don't know if any additional confederate beyond two will substantially make it more likely the test subject will change but I suspect that if it does it won't be as much as the increase from one to two. I also predict that this "bandwagon affect" is more pronounced in self-described conservatives than in liberals and that conservatives are more likely to change their views when the message is presented uncivilly than in more moderate or dispassionate tones than liberals.

Some of these last predictions are based on my personal experience so are quite speculative, obviously. I would really like to see if there's any truth to them.

Ubiquitous fictionalism

In a previous post, I talked about the possibility of moral fictionalism and the skepticism this possibility may justify. But fictionalism is not restricted to the moral realm. All kinds of metaphysical fictionalism is possible and the live possibility that there is much truth to them is the history of philosophy itself which has always butted heads against our most common notions of what exists, even the most commonly acknowledged objects are not safe from the existence of good reasons against their existence. Many metaphysicians are monists, many are atomists, and some are even nihilists. All these positions often deny the existence of chairs, basketballs, cars, and even people and claim that they are mere fictions we conjure to make sense of our world. They often claim that normal objects we encounter daily are begotten through abstraction and are not really there, objectively, mind independently, in the sense we may think or assume they are.

Take monists. They believe that there is just one thing that really exist and usually that one thing they believe is just the whole cosmos or "blobject" (some priority monists believe that only one thing exists concretely while everything else is abstract while existence monists believe that nothing else exists exist for that one thing, whatever it is). Now monists give very good reasons for why they believe what they believe. They can show contradictions and inconsistencies in positing normal everyday objects such as chairs, basketballs, cars, persons, molecules, etc. Monists have summoned arguments from mereology and modern physics (Jonathan Schaffer's argument from quantum field theory e.g.) among other resources to argue their case.

Now take atomists. Many of these folks only believe in the existence of atoms, whatever they may be (quarks or maybe strings or something even more fundamental). All other objects are collections of atoms with some relationship holding among them and obtained through arbitrary abstractions and thus there existence is mind-dependent in a sense. Atomists also have good reason to argue their case.

(Pure) Nihilists don't believe in the existence of any object. Many of them believe that there is gunk all the way down and all the way up. Again, nihilists have good reasons for their beliefs and their beliefs are conflicting much like the other positions with pluralism, the common sense view that all everyday objects like chairs, cars, basketballs, persons, etc exist. They often point to contradictions and inconsistencies in the belief in common objects or in the belief in any object qua object in the way philosophers think of them as existing with their internal properties mind independently, etc.

So it might be the case that our belief that everyday objects like chairs, cars, basketballs, and people are mere fictions. And furthermore, our belief in atoms and the cosmos might be fictions. Furthermore, any belief that assumes, posits, and is built on such beliefs may be in turn fictions. Fictions multiply on other fictions and we would need to invent more and more fictions in ever more ingenious ways familiar to philosophical construction to make sense of our world in ad hoc ways just to keep things coherent. That ad hoc constructionism only to run into further problems down the road sounds like the history of philosophy! This would entail, if true, that we live in a world of our own creation in a profound sense, a world of our fictions with reality far different and weirder than we can imagine. This induces a very Taoist sensibility in me. Something exists, that it is The One, but we cannot know its exact nature except in very general, abstract and ineffable terms, and all conceptualizations on this The One goes wrong from the start seems like a Taoist's skepticist view.

The value of philosophy

The best response I have heard to the question of why study philosophy, why study questions that have not been adequately answered for thousands of years matter, is given by Michael Sandel. "Because we live the answers everyday."

There are many values to studying the subject. I think the most important on are ethical reasons. But the common objections given include the "fact" that philosophy has not contributed to human knowledge and or human society's development. This is clearly wrong. Here's a list of all that philosophy has contributed in terms of knowledge both directly and indirectly (through methodology developed) and through social change.

Philosophy's contribution to our knowledge:

-Modern economics was first developed by the moral philosopher Adam Smith.

-Psychology, sociology political science all originated from the minds of philosophers.

-Modern work in logic was heavily influenced by philosophers. The truth table in logic e.g. was first seen in the work of a philosopher (1919 by Wittgenstein) which eventually lead to the electronic revolution of the 60s. The earliest development of modal logic is by Aristotle, C.I. Lewis, Ruth Marcus and Saul Kripke, all philosophers.

-Cybernetics, the science of regulatory systems was started by someone with a philosophy PhD (Norbert Weiner).

-Modern linguistics bases much of its work on formal semantics almost exclusively on the works of philosophers of language such as Frege, Russell, Kaplan, Montage, David Lewis and many others.

-The 2005 Nobel Prize for economics went to mathematician Robert Aumann who based his work on economic conventions on the work of David Lewis's notion of "common knowledge".

-The development of modern cognitive science, both its inception and developments within to this day to philosophers.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_scientistsAnd much of decision theory have been developed by philosophers as well.ser.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-are-some-physicists-so-bad-at.html?commentPage=2

This is not mentioning all the knowledge developed in more traditionally understood philosophical areas.

To the shape of society and course of human history:

-Development of democratic theory

-Development of legal theory

-Various economic theories (capitalism, communism etc)

And so forth.

It's not only a myth that philosophy has not contributed to society, it seems to be one of those myths that's the opposite from the truth. Philosophy has had massive influence as my examples show.

A bit of chauvinism

Philosophers often face the peculiar position in any discussion with another academic that they will understand far more about their interlocutor's discipline than their interlocutor will understand anything about philosophy. However, I see many philosophers of science be quite diffident in dealing with scientists even when the topic is more philosophical in nature in regards to some science. I will be advocating more confidence and maybe a kind of chauvinism. I do think philosophers of science often understand their respective sciences more than the scientists themselves. Scientists do understand what they do obviously quite well, but they often are mired in the details and do not have a comparative and general overview of just exactly what the fundamental nature of what they are doing consists in. Philosophers of science do have this overview and should not feel presumptuous when talking about the more philosophical aspects of some scientific domain as they are usually well informed about the discipline itself and the body of philosophical literature about the philosophical aspects of it.

I've seen interviews with many physicists such as Feynman and Susskind who shamelessly will pontificate on all sorts of scientific matters outside of their area of specialization. Feynman talking about social science, Susskind about morality and evolution etc. They clearly have no clue. Physicists generally seem to have fewer qualms about discussing things outside of their expertise proclaiming all sorts of nutty things about them. Philosophers of science should do the same but the difference now is that at least philosophers of science are usually well-read and competent in the science they philosophize about.

Here's an interesting related story: Once Feynman supposedly said (paraphrasing) of the philosophy of physics "a physicist needs the philosophy of physics like a bird needs ornithology." A well known philosopher of science famously responded "If a bird could understand ornithology, it would come very handy to him.

XPhi

Experimental philosophy (XPhi) has received some press in the last few years. I am skeptical of its purported powers to offer insight on philosophical questions so far. Maybe in the future there will be novel and interesting ways that do offer insight into the philosophical questions but I don't see the way it is being used now doing that.

XPhi uses surveys to ask a "representative sample" ("the Folk") of the population what their philosophical intuitions are in the hypothetical thought experiments used by philosophers to generate intuitions used in philosophical debates. If the Folk's intuitions tend to lean one way, it is interpreted by XPhi proponents as some (but not conclusive) evidence that that way is the right way. In other words, XPhi philosophers are sometimes suspicious of their own intuitions and will give certain weight to the intuitions of the Folk. And there is evidence from XPhi that the intuitions of philosophers tend to run differently than the intuitions of the Folk on many issues.

An example of one instance where XPhi experiments has used to give credence for one perspective over another in contemporary debate is the debate over what are lies. Don Fallis has used experiments showing that the Folk consider bald-faced lies to be real lies. This is counter to many philosopher's claims that bald-faced lies are not lies because they don't involve an element of deception as is required with genuine lying. Experiments show that the Folk considers bald-faced lies to be lies contrary to the classical definition of lies accepted by most philosophers. Fallis has adduced this as evidence that the classical definition must thus be false. My reasons that XPhi as it currently is used is not that interesting and relevant to philosophical questions are the following:

1. Many of the samples used in XPhi experiments are not representative samples (they are the undergrad students of XPhi philosophers who are taking phil 101 type classes).

2. Much like individuals often get similar but different concepts confused, it's not that much of a stretch that sometimes, a majority of the population will similarly conflate two different but (superficially) similar concepts.

3. There may be very good reasons why philosophers have the intuitions they do. They may do so because they realize a subtle difference that the Folk do not that must be upheld in any definition. There are good reasons for including a deception criteria in lying for example as I have pointed out before and also see here.

4. It's been known for a long time by cultural psychologists and anthropologists that surveys, intra and especially inter cultural ones, can vary widely in the responses given simply by changing subtle wordings in the questions asked or the context in which they are given. The answers sometimes do not reflect true differences in cognitive thought processes and profiles but rather in "surface" linguistic differences in how words and scenarios are interpreted.

Perhaps one day XPhi will be used in a way that is insightful but the experiments so far do not seem convincing to me in settling any philosophical issues.

The philosophy of philosophy

This is an interview with professional philosophers about what is philosophy.


Here are a couple of definitions of my own.

1. Philosophy is a systematic attempt to answer the most important questions anyone can ever ask.

2. Philosophy is an attempt at extending all our common sense notions to their logical conclusion and seeing if there are any contradictions that arise. If there are, philosophy's other job is an attempt to see which side of the conflict is more plausible or whether the conflict is due to a conceptual confusion instead of a real conflict.

You're welcome to post your own definitions.

What is Wisdom?

Wikipedia has this to say about the etymology of the word ‘philosophy’.

The word "Philosophy" comes from the Greek φιλοσοφία [philosophia], which literally means "love of wisdom".

But surprisingly little work has been done in the discipline to examine just what ‘wisdom’ means (one cursory search of the Philosopher’s Index shows that there has been a dearth of philosophical papers written on this subject). Just about every important concept to humans has come under the philosopher's sharp knife of analysis but it would seem that at least one important concept has been left out which is of central concern to the very understanding of the discipline of philosophy itself.

Some might say that wisdom is like porn; you can’t give a satisfactory definition of it but you’ll know it when you see it.

I’ll not take such a defeatist approach and actually attempt an examination of this concept. Most people have a fuzzy understanding of it and there may be many possible definitions but I'd like to give a definition I think reflects a philosophical import. Comments are welcome as to modifications and objections.

The dictionary defines wisdom as “knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight.” This seems basically right to me but leaves much to be desired. What does it mean to have just judgment as to action and to know what’s right? The definition captures some of what we mean by the term but something essential seems lost in terms of clarity and breadth of our general understanding. Most of us have a tacit understanding of what wisdom means and can differentiate instances of it and instances of knowledgeable simpliciter. Not all knowledgeable individuals are wise; that seems obvious to me and I’d suspect to most people as well. On one internet discussion forum, I once engaged in a discussion with someone who asked me, in all seriousness, what the difference between these two things were when I had appealed to the difference to make a point. This individual was a reasonably intelligent fellow and English was his first language but he insisted that wisdom is nothing but knowledge. That strikes me as obviously wrong but I had no explicit way to defining then just what that difference was other than, perfunctorily, giving him the link to the dictionary definition which was not satisfactory neither to me, as I wanted to make my point more palpable to him, and to him seeing that he still wasn’t convinced after our discussion that there was a substantive difference.

That’s what led me to write this; to try to give more structure and clarity to where there was less; to hopefully understand the difference better myself and to draw out the consequences stemming from implications of that difference.

First, I think it obvious that wisdom is a virtue (or perhaps a set of virtues). In fact, it may be the most important virtue (or the most important collectively identifiable set of virtues). Now I take Aristotle to be correct in believing that a virtue has two basic components , namely, a dispositional/affective component and a cognitive one as well. What is meant by dispositional/affective is that there is an emotive aspect; one involving the sentiments and a certain kind of procedural knowledge that usually comes with having well refined emotive development. Cultivating such a refinement might include cultivating a sensibility to react in a certain way, emotionally and behaviorally, to the actions or speech of others and to those behaviors or thoughts and feelings of oneself, for example.

What I mean by a “cognitive” component is that wisdom contains a part that is like what normal factual knowledge. It has, what philosophers call, intentional content. There is something any particular piece of knowledge is about. There is a fact of the matter about it; whether or not it is true is determined by whether or not the state-of-affairs it represents obtains.

Normally when we talk about knowledge what we mean is what I will hence forth call first-order knowledge. This is to be distinguished from procedural knowledge (such as much of the knowledge of how to play the guitar, e.g. or how to be a good friend to someone. This kind of knowledge is not intentional, it does not represent a state-of-affairs). A Jeopardy champ, for example, will have lots of this kind of knowledge but not necessarily will be very knowledgeable in procedural knowledge (indeed, most of us can come up with many personal examples of people like this).

Our Jeopardy champ might also be a good example of someone that is both very knowledgeable but unwise. Let’s call such a philistine genius, Phil.

Like I said, I think wisdom does have a kind of component that is similar in kind to the kind of knowledge when we normally speak of someone being knowledgeable, i.e., when they have lots of first-order knowledge. To see the distinction between the cognitive component in wisdom and more humdrum notions of knowledge such as the knowledge used by Phil to win his prize money, a wise person can be said to know some things that a knowledgeable but unwise person does not know. This component of her knowledge also is intentional. But here is where the difference lies; the relevant intentional knowledge a wise person has, under my definition, is not first-order. It is best described as second-order knowledge or perhaps meta-knowledge . That is, it is literally, knowledge about knowledge (or maybe beliefs that are likely true) or knowledge about methods of reliable acquisitions of knowledge.

One kind of second-order knowledge might be the knowledge of how far one’s own epistemic limitations extend. Hence, Socrates was wise because he claimed he didn’t really know much of anything but only came upon the truth through detailed and rigorous examination with his interlocutor(s). And Confucius claimed that a wise person must maintain that he knows when he really does know and be maintain silence when he does not know. Knowing where the boundaries of one’s ken lies must be a kind of knowledge and it can be either accurate or not; whether or not it is, is determined by some facts about the world (namely, which portion of one’s beliefs are likely true or have good reasons to believe them true and which do not). Certainly, that boundary must have fuzzy borders but just as certainly, there is distinction to be made. Some of our beliefs are surely true and we have good reasons to believe them. Some of our beliefs are not so well supported. Others may exist at some border-vague area. The point is that some people, due to too much “epistemic hubris,” say, may have inaccurate estimations of their belief system. They may not know as much as they think. Still others may underestimate themselves by quite a bit. They lack epistemic confidence or self-efficacy. Both these instances are cases that, under my conception, display a substantial lack of second-order knowledge. Both will suffer because their actions will often be imprudent due to this inaccuracy of estimation of their own knowledge.

Additionally, one displays another kind of second-order knowledge when one knows what methods are reliable to arrive at the truth and what methods are not so reliable. Those that understand that claims that have withstood the demands of scientific rigor by going through and surviving the gauntlet of the scientific journal review processes and subsequent follow-up experimentation, for example, ceteris paribus, are more reliable than, say, counter claims that have not, display a kind of second-order knowledge. A person that insists that her reliance on astrology to arrive at some claim is better than someone who denies that claim based on much more reliable means does not display wise behavior. She does not have good knowledge of reliable methods to arrive at knowledge. Even more quotidian forms of examination such as applying common sense and engaging in balanced, nonbiased, rational debate are ways far more likely to arrive at the truth than other less reasonable methods (such as unreasonable argumentation, or being dogmatic, for example).

A person who knows that arriving at genuine knowledge and understanding of some phenomenon is in many instances a difficult journey requiring lots of effort, clear thinking, and systematic investigation, may be said to display another kind of second-order knowledge. This knowledge of Truth’s demands, is the opposite of epistemic naivety, it indicates a kind of epistemic refinement, maturity or sophistication.

There may be other kinds of second-order knowledge I haven’t talked about but it should be somewhat clear by now of what I mean by second-order knowledge. Those who have quite a bit of this kind of knowledge probably also usually have certain kinds of character traits. I think it reasonable to suggest that having acquired a lot of such second-order knowledge as described above is usually done only through a life-time of persistent and conscientious pursuit of Truth. The epistemic journey I suggest engenders certain feelings and dispositions in people. Perhaps a certain amount of respect and reverence for well-supported beliefs and those individuals who hold them dear because one knows oneself how difficult it is to attain them. Perhaps a disdain for bullshit and indignation at bullshitters is also inculcated by pursuing the path of wisdom.

Another character trait of the wise person might be a certain kind of epistemic humility without a deficiency of epistemic confidence (epistemic efficacy in matters regarding one’s well supported beliefs). Knowing that one’s own beliefs are subject to the demands of fair critique and rational debate and that one should revise even a long held belief when sufficient evidence becomes available to warrant the revision, but a willingness to subject one’s beliefs despite the possibility of such revisions manifest this kind of character trait, I suggest. Not taking such criticisms personal, but even actively seeking it out and subjecting one’s own beliefs to such critical-examinations using the same standards one subjects to views contrary to one’s own, displays, also, a kind of humility, fair-mindedness, and integrity, or maybe a kind of confidence oneself without displaying an ego as well.

To sum up, I think wisdom to have two major kinds of components. One is a kind of knowledge I called ‘second-order knowledge’ or knowledge about knowledge (how it’s reliably obtained, what the limitations of one’s own ken are, etc). The other major component is a set of dispositions or sensibilities which are indicative of an intellectually mature mind with the requisite intellectual integrity required for seeking and loving the Truth. It's what a sage values most deeply.

Einstein reportedly once said: "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school." Wisdom is what I take Einstein to be talking about here by his use of "education." What one is taught directly in school is first-order knowledge about the world but once one forgets these facts, something far more valuable remains.


Addendum: there may be lots of other kinds of second-order knowledge that I haven't mentioned but still relevant to an analysis of wisdom and there may be other kinds of dispositions or sensibilities important for the non-cognitive portion of knowledge as well. If you have a suggestion, please bring it up in the comments section.