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I am a layman. Whenever I see the divide between analytic philosophy and continental philosophy I find it funny, since there is no continental physics or contin

I am a layman. Whenever I see the divide between analytic philosophy and continental philosophy I find it funny, since there is no continental physics or continental chemistry.

oh_sigh 8y ago
Bernard Williams said it would be similar if we divided cars into two classes: 4 wheel drive, and made in Japan.
woodruffw 8y ago
I think this comes from a misunderstanding of what philosophy is. Philosophy is not a science, and can never become one without threatening its current epistemic/ontological role -- objects like falsification, Quine's "best science", proof by contradiction, and argumentation from necessity exist as a substrate for scientific reasoning, and so repositioning them as objects of the science they support would involve circular reasoning[1]. Put another way: to "lift" philosophy into the domain of science would involve defining/formulating the guiding principles of sound/"good" science in their own terms. (I was educated in the analytic tradition.) [1]: It's worth noting that this only covers the philosophies of science and mathematics, not things like ethics, aesthetics, existence, &c. I think we can defend investigating the latter subjects as a consequence of science's inability to answer normative questions -- science can only tell us what is, not what ought to be.
- Iv 8y ago
  > I think we can defend investigating the latter subjects as a consequence of science's inability to answer normative questions -- science can only tell us what is, not what ought to be. Honestly I always felt thiswas a smokescreen. Science can totally explore philosophical and moral questions once axioms have been laid out. Science is illegitimate to lay down these axioms, but so are philosophy, spirituality, religion, or any other justifications. Studying what is does not forbid to study morality, its ramifications, justifications and consequences as moral systems do exist, as human constructs. Can you deduce humanism from purely utilitarian axioms? Does it lead to similar systems? How about when one adds bounded rationality? These are scientifically answerable questions as well as questions that I would consider philosophical. The fact that modern academic philosophy feels unbound to scientific rigor in fields when it does not have to be so is totally unjustified IMO. And I think that one can obtain much more interesting debates if we keep the tested epistemological tools of science to infer complex normative consequences from common axioms.
  - woodruffw 8y ago
    > Science is illegitimate to lay down these axioms, but so are philosophy, spirituality, religion, or any other justifications. Where do you we propose that we get our moral axioms from, then? I don't mean that as a dismissal, just to observe that rejecting "any other justifications" seems to leave us incapable of producing real/universal moral axioms. That spells trouble for domains like science, which are generally in the business of distinguishing the real things in the world from the fake ones. > Can you deduce humanism from purely utilitarian axioms? Does it lead to similar systems? How about when one adds bounded rationality? These are scientifically answerable questions as well as questions that I would consider philosophical. I agree that they're philosophical, but I don't think they're scientific as posed: "deduce" suggests a sort of logical proof, one that we'd probably accept a priori (i.e., without needing to experiment or develop any sort of knowledge of the world). Similarly, "similar" in what sense? I don't think science has (so far) given us good answers to the problems of universals/categories/platonic forms, and I think that doing any sort of moral science would require that we first tackle that. > The fact that modern academic philosophy feels unbound to scientific rigor in fields when it does not have to be so is totally unjustified IMO. I think it's worth noting that scientific rigor is not the only sort of rigor out there -- philosophers, especially analyticists, pride themselves on developing clear definitions and using formal logical systems for argumentation. The vast majority of philosophers would not accept gut feeling as a substitute for sound argumentation, nor would they shy away from scientific results as inductive evidence for a claim. I think that is the sort of rigor we should demand from philosophy, not that of science.
    - Iv 8y ago
      Our moral axioms are totally arbitrary and subjective. We do not chose moral axioms that are correct, we chose those that we like. Science car merely explore the consequences of those choices and point possible contradictions but not make that choice for you. In the same way that science can tell you how to create chocolate or vanilla aromas but can't tell you which one tastes better. > "deduce" suggests a sort of logical proof, one that we'd probably accept a priori Indeed, there is a lot of work to do to translate the tools of logic into the domain of morality, define the conditions and limitations of the methodology, and possibly at some point do experiments or observation to check if the model matches reality. Thing is, we can totally approach these questions scientifically and the fact that philosophers do not focus on making the tools to unleash the full power of science over these questions is hard to justify.
- claudiawerner 8y ago
  >Philosophy is not a science, and can never become one without threatening its current epistemic/ontological role It's worth noting that there are some who disagree and have some good arguments in support of that[0], and that philosophy as Wissenschaft was prevalent until relatively recently. To me, the continental/analytic distinction is a distinction in the methods of inquiry, if it is a valid distinction at all. [0] http://www.philosophyisscience.com/ http://www.philosophyisscience.com/
  - woodruffw 8y ago
    Great points. I guess I should have said that I'm using "science" with a 20th century tinge and from the perspective of analytic thinkers of that period. In that context, I think I'd agree with a description of science as a strict subset of epistemology, specifically the branch of epistemology that dedicates itself to picking out things in the physical world. Per your link: I wonder what the author of that page thinks of the Gettier problems and whether they constitute "false knowledge."
lgessler 8y ago
This is just due to the circumstances of the history of philosophy. The birthplace of analytic philosophy was the UK, and "continental" was a convenient way to refer to all the other (western) philosophical traditions analytic philosophy set out to contrast itself with, since they had been developed in continental Europe.

I am a layman. Whenever I see the divide between analytic philosophy and continental philosophy I find it funny, since there is no continental physics or continental chemistry.

oh_sigh 8y ago

Bernard Williams said it would be similar if we divided cars into two classes: 4 wheel drive, and made in Japan.

woodruffw 8y ago

I think this comes from a misunderstanding of what philosophy is. Philosophy is not a science, and can never become one without threatening its current epistemic/ontological role -- objects like falsification, Quine's "best science", proof by contradiction, and argumentation from necessity exist as a substrate for scientific reasoning, and so repositioning them as objects of the science they support would involve circular reasoning[1]. Put another way: to "lift" philosophy into the domain of science would involve defining/formulating the guiding principles of sound/"good" science in their own terms. (I was educated in the analytic tradition.) [1]: It's worth noting that this only covers the philosophies of science and mathematics, not things like ethics, aesthetics, existence, &c. I think we can defend investigating the latter subjects as a consequence of science's inability to answer normative questions -- science can only tell us what is, not what ought to be.

Iv 8y ago
> I think we can defend investigating the latter subjects as a consequence of science's inability to answer normative questions -- science can only tell us what is, not what ought to be. Honestly I always felt thiswas a smokescreen. Science can totally explore philosophical and moral questions once axioms have been laid out. Science is illegitimate to lay down these axioms, but so are philosophy, spirituality, religion, or any other justifications. Studying what is does not forbid to study morality, its ramifications, justifications and consequences as moral systems do exist, as human constructs. Can you deduce humanism from purely utilitarian axioms? Does it lead to similar systems? How about when one adds bounded rationality? These are scientifically answerable questions as well as questions that I would consider philosophical. The fact that modern academic philosophy feels unbound to scientific rigor in fields when it does not have to be so is totally unjustified IMO. And I think that one can obtain much more interesting debates if we keep the tested epistemological tools of science to infer complex normative consequences from common axioms.
- woodruffw 8y ago
  > Science is illegitimate to lay down these axioms, but so are philosophy, spirituality, religion, or any other justifications. Where do you we propose that we get our moral axioms from, then? I don't mean that as a dismissal, just to observe that rejecting "any other justifications" seems to leave us incapable of producing real/universal moral axioms. That spells trouble for domains like science, which are generally in the business of distinguishing the real things in the world from the fake ones. > Can you deduce humanism from purely utilitarian axioms? Does it lead to similar systems? How about when one adds bounded rationality? These are scientifically answerable questions as well as questions that I would consider philosophical. I agree that they're philosophical, but I don't think they're scientific as posed: "deduce" suggests a sort of logical proof, one that we'd probably accept a priori (i.e., without needing to experiment or develop any sort of knowledge of the world). Similarly, "similar" in what sense? I don't think science has (so far) given us good answers to the problems of universals/categories/platonic forms, and I think that doing any sort of moral science would require that we first tackle that. > The fact that modern academic philosophy feels unbound to scientific rigor in fields when it does not have to be so is totally unjustified IMO. I think it's worth noting that scientific rigor is not the only sort of rigor out there -- philosophers, especially analyticists, pride themselves on developing clear definitions and using formal logical systems for argumentation. The vast majority of philosophers would not accept gut feeling as a substitute for sound argumentation, nor would they shy away from scientific results as inductive evidence for a claim. I think that is the sort of rigor we should demand from philosophy, not that of science.
  - Iv 8y ago
    Our moral axioms are totally arbitrary and subjective. We do not chose moral axioms that are correct, we chose those that we like. Science car merely explore the consequences of those choices and point possible contradictions but not make that choice for you. In the same way that science can tell you how to create chocolate or vanilla aromas but can't tell you which one tastes better. > "deduce" suggests a sort of logical proof, one that we'd probably accept a priori Indeed, there is a lot of work to do to translate the tools of logic into the domain of morality, define the conditions and limitations of the methodology, and possibly at some point do experiments or observation to check if the model matches reality. Thing is, we can totally approach these questions scientifically and the fact that philosophers do not focus on making the tools to unleash the full power of science over these questions is hard to justify.
claudiawerner 8y ago
>Philosophy is not a science, and can never become one without threatening its current epistemic/ontological role It's worth noting that there are some who disagree and have some good arguments in support of that[0], and that philosophy as Wissenschaft was prevalent until relatively recently. To me, the continental/analytic distinction is a distinction in the methods of inquiry, if it is a valid distinction at all. [0] http://www.philosophyisscience.com/ http://www.philosophyisscience.com/
- woodruffw 8y ago
  Great points. I guess I should have said that I'm using "science" with a 20th century tinge and from the perspective of analytic thinkers of that period. In that context, I think I'd agree with a description of science as a strict subset of epistemology, specifically the branch of epistemology that dedicates itself to picking out things in the physical world. Per your link: I wonder what the author of that page thinks of the Gettier problems and whether they constitute "false knowledge."

lgessler 8y ago

This is just due to the circumstances of the history of philosophy. The birthplace of analytic philosophy was the UK, and "continental" was a convenient way to refer to all the other (western) philosophical traditions analytic philosophy set out to contrast itself with, since they had been developed in continental Europe.