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"The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in th
by Ptyx 8y ago
"The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find, as we saw in our opening chapters, that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect."
Bertrand Russell
- Balgair 8y agoGreat passage, thank you! I think some of the umbrage between the STEMy folks and the philosophers comes from the educational differences. Namely, math. STEMy folks, especially physicists, take a LOT of math. In my limited experiences, most philosophers do not have the calculus, let alone the matrix algebra, diff. eqs., Lagrangians, or the stats background (anecdata, so please rebuke!). Not that those things are required to do philosophy, but the lack of them limits the philosopher a lot. This is especially true in today's world filled with matrix algebra and stats, err... Machine Learning and AI. We constantly hear about the ethics of a self driving car near a school-bus, but it's all so much jawing discussion and shows an infantile understanding of the machines that are doing the driving. The lack of rigorous high level logic (Godel, Escher, Bach comes to mind) hinders many modern philosophers and puts their discipline off at the separate table for kids at Thanksgiving. If they want to be relevant in the modern world, they need to speak one of the important languages: math.
- Schiphol 8y ago>... most philosophers do not have the calculus, let alone the matrix algebra, diff. eqs., Lagrangians, or the stats background (anecdata, so please rebuke!). While this is certainly true for many philosophers, it is false for philosophers of physics. The best among them (say, Tim Maudlin, Laura Ruetsche, David Wallace and others) have a very sophisticated understanding of their target science and many hold advanced degrees in it.
- convolvatron 8y agoalso don't forget the strong historic connections between mathematical logic, number theory, and philosophy.
- pasabagi 8y agoYou should actually read philosophy. Or maths. Betrand Russel discovered Russel's paradox, which was extremely influential in the development of set theory. Many philosophers are excellent mathematicians. Logic is a discipline that is taught in basically every philosophy course.
- Balgair 8y agoTo be clear, I am talking about contemporary individuals, not historical ones. Obviously Russell and Godel were excellent logicians and moved philosophy ahead considerably.
- pasabagi 8y agoYou should probably read contemporary philosophy, then! Formal logic is a central tool of most analytic philosophy, to this day. The more logic-oriented side of philosophy typically merges seamlessly into maths. It's not limited to analytic philosophy, either - continental thinkers like Badiou have sustained engagement with set theory - it's very traditional, actually.
- 8y ago