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> Philosophers professing to be scientists has been troubling me more and more the past few years. Scientists professing not to be philosophers has been troubl

> Philosophers professing to be scientists has been troubling me more and more the past few years. Scientists professing not to be philosophers has been troubling me more and more the past few years.

btilly 4y ago
Why does it bother you? As Richard Feynman said, "Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds." Sure, lots of what scientists do, including Feynman, involve an implied philosophy. It is easy to read https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm or https://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm https://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm and extract a lot of important philosophical ideas from them. But I have yet to see any self-proclaimed philosopher successfully do so without totally losing the key points. There was a time when I thought that philosophy must have something important to it, and philosophers must have something useful to say. So I wound up reading works by various philosophers that were recommended to me. Some works, like Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, were invaluable. Most weren't. The ones that were invaluable to me inevitably were written by people whose primary profession was NOT philosopher. For example Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor. After a time I learned that if an important philosophical point happens to be made by a philosopher, I'd prefer to hear it filtered through the brain of a non-philosopher. Every time I try setting this rule aside, I am reminded of why I adopted it in the first place. And so, even if I'm reading about something which is apparently philosophical, I skip past the philosophers. Paul Graham offers an explanation of why this might be in http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html. I don't completely agree. But I also don't have a better explanation to offer. And I'll happily laugh at anyone who tells me that I should think of myself as a philosopher because I happen to be interested in a bunch of philosophical-sounding subjects like "philosophy of math", "epistemology" and so on.
- tim333 4y ago
  Feynman was actually quite sophisticated philosophically eg. “The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific truth.” I think when there is a purpose to philosophy eg. understanding science, it works better. When there isn't really philosophers tend to in many cases just discuss what other philosophers have said about each other which tends to get a bit circular and pointless.
  - pksebben 4y ago
    I think perhaps there's a subtlety in that quote - "philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds". Maybe part of the meaning, is that I'm the course of doing what scientists do, philosophy doesn't move their particular ball forward in the way they want so they can and sometimes do ignore it. Not necessarily that they should. This guy helped create nuclear weapons, and then quoted the bagvad ghita and had a long time to think about it. I can't imagine it didn't occur to him.
    - archgoon 4y ago
      > and then quoted the bagvad ghita and had a long time to think about it. That was Oppenheimer, not Feynman.
      - pksebben 4y ago
        D'oh. You're totally right; I was having a different conversation apparently.
    - btilly 4y ago
      Feynman attempted to make his speech simple, clear, and precise. It is almost certainly a mistake to read subtlety into his language. Besides, he expressed his negative opinions on philosophy and philosophers in many ways, on many occasions. He very clearly was on the side of those saying that philosophers SHOULD be ignored by anyone who wished to learn science.
  - btilly 4y ago
    Indeed. Feynman was extremely good at getting to the heart of the matter with simple and precise language and no pretensions. This is why so many important ideas of a philosophical nature can be found in his works. But conversely he had little patience with obfuscating the heart of the matter with unnecessary complications, overly complex or vague language, or pretension of any kind. But philosophers do all of those. If you read Paul Graham's essay, which I linked to, his proposal for how to fix philosophy is to focus on usefulness. For exactly the reason you stated.
- yesenadam 4y ago
  That, apart from the first line, seems like a pretty generic/off-topic "I don't get philosophy and it's stupid" rant that could equally well be pasted under any story involving philosophy. I don't see how it relates at all to the comment you replied to, which I thought was a good one.
  - btilly 4y ago
    Let me explain how it relates. The comment advocated that scientists should profess to be philosophers. Why? Presumably because they are engaged in a field of study that philosophers have claimed. Furthermore the author is bothered that they don't. Why? Likely because if scientists acknowledged their status as philosophers, that would raise the status of philosophers. And so the meat of my comment was illustrating by anecdote that the fact that philosophers have claimed a field, does not mean that they contribute meaningfully to it. Nor that people interested in the field should pay attention to philosophers. Nor that they should call themselves philosophers. Therefore, despite the claim that philosophers lay to topics like "epistemology", scientists SHOULD NOT profess to be philosophers. And anyone who claims otherwise should be laughed at. Now why did I make my comment? It is because I saw the comment as being part of the genre of people who attempt to raise the status of their field by laying an unwarranted claim to the accomplishments of others. This offends me. Philosophy and philosophers do not deserve credit for the accomplishments of science. And should not demand that scientists give philosophy that credit by relabeling themselves as philosophers. With all that said, hopefully you'll better see how I saw my response as responsive to the comment. And hopefully you'll understand why I did not find it a good comment.
    - memling 4y ago
      > The comment advocated that scientists should profess to be philosophers. This context is helpful, thanks. I didn't advocate anything. I said that it bothers me is that (some) scientists profess not to be philosophers. This is because, in fact, scientists, like all people, actually are philosophers. > It is because I saw the comment as being part of the genre of people who attempt to raise the status of their field My field is not philosophy. > by laying an unwarranted claim to the accomplishments of others. Neither did I make any claims in my original comment. You seem to have extrapolated quite a lot from a single sentence. > Philosophy and philosophers do not deserve credit for the accomplishments of science. The origin of science is obviously philosophical; indeed, Western science is theological in origin (and so is Eastern if you want to broaden your definition of theology a bit). It is equally obvious, if perhaps a bit ironic, that modern science has distanced itself from its earlier foundations.

> Philosophers professing to be scientists has been troubling me more and more the past few years. Scientists professing not to be philosophers has been troubling me more and more the past few years.

btilly 4y ago

Why does it bother you? As Richard Feynman said, "Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds." Sure, lots of what scientists do, including Feynman, involve an implied philosophy. It is easy to read https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm or https://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm https://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm and extract a lot of important philosophical ideas from them. But I have yet to see any self-proclaimed philosopher successfully do so without totally losing the key points. There was a time when I thought that philosophy must have something important to it, and philosophers must have something useful to say. So I wound up reading works by various philosophers that were recommended to me. Some works, like Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, were invaluable. Most weren't. The ones that were invaluable to me inevitably were written by people whose primary profession was NOT philosopher. For example Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor. After a time I learned that if an important philosophical point happens to be made by a philosopher, I'd prefer to hear it filtered through the brain of a non-philosopher. Every time I try setting this rule aside, I am reminded of why I adopted it in the first place. And so, even if I'm reading about something which is apparently philosophical, I skip past the philosophers. Paul Graham offers an explanation of why this might be in http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html. I don't completely agree. But I also don't have a better explanation to offer. And I'll happily laugh at anyone who tells me that I should think of myself as a philosopher because I happen to be interested in a bunch of philosophical-sounding subjects like "philosophy of math", "epistemology" and so on.

tim333 4y ago
Feynman was actually quite sophisticated philosophically eg. “The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific truth.” I think when there is a purpose to philosophy eg. understanding science, it works better. When there isn't really philosophers tend to in many cases just discuss what other philosophers have said about each other which tends to get a bit circular and pointless.
- pksebben 4y ago
  I think perhaps there's a subtlety in that quote - "philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds". Maybe part of the meaning, is that I'm the course of doing what scientists do, philosophy doesn't move their particular ball forward in the way they want so they can and sometimes do ignore it. Not necessarily that they should. This guy helped create nuclear weapons, and then quoted the bagvad ghita and had a long time to think about it. I can't imagine it didn't occur to him.
  - archgoon 4y ago
    > and then quoted the bagvad ghita and had a long time to think about it. That was Oppenheimer, not Feynman.
    - pksebben 4y ago
      D'oh. You're totally right; I was having a different conversation apparently.
  - btilly 4y ago
    Feynman attempted to make his speech simple, clear, and precise. It is almost certainly a mistake to read subtlety into his language. Besides, he expressed his negative opinions on philosophy and philosophers in many ways, on many occasions. He very clearly was on the side of those saying that philosophers SHOULD be ignored by anyone who wished to learn science.
- btilly 4y ago
  Indeed. Feynman was extremely good at getting to the heart of the matter with simple and precise language and no pretensions. This is why so many important ideas of a philosophical nature can be found in his works. But conversely he had little patience with obfuscating the heart of the matter with unnecessary complications, overly complex or vague language, or pretension of any kind. But philosophers do all of those. If you read Paul Graham's essay, which I linked to, his proposal for how to fix philosophy is to focus on usefulness. For exactly the reason you stated.
yesenadam 4y ago
That, apart from the first line, seems like a pretty generic/off-topic "I don't get philosophy and it's stupid" rant that could equally well be pasted under any story involving philosophy. I don't see how it relates at all to the comment you replied to, which I thought was a good one.
- btilly 4y ago
  Let me explain how it relates. The comment advocated that scientists should profess to be philosophers. Why? Presumably because they are engaged in a field of study that philosophers have claimed. Furthermore the author is bothered that they don't. Why? Likely because if scientists acknowledged their status as philosophers, that would raise the status of philosophers. And so the meat of my comment was illustrating by anecdote that the fact that philosophers have claimed a field, does not mean that they contribute meaningfully to it. Nor that people interested in the field should pay attention to philosophers. Nor that they should call themselves philosophers. Therefore, despite the claim that philosophers lay to topics like "epistemology", scientists SHOULD NOT profess to be philosophers. And anyone who claims otherwise should be laughed at. Now why did I make my comment? It is because I saw the comment as being part of the genre of people who attempt to raise the status of their field by laying an unwarranted claim to the accomplishments of others. This offends me. Philosophy and philosophers do not deserve credit for the accomplishments of science. And should not demand that scientists give philosophy that credit by relabeling themselves as philosophers. With all that said, hopefully you'll better see how I saw my response as responsive to the comment. And hopefully you'll understand why I did not find it a good comment.
  - memling 4y ago
    > The comment advocated that scientists should profess to be philosophers. This context is helpful, thanks. I didn't advocate anything. I said that it bothers me is that (some) scientists profess not to be philosophers. This is because, in fact, scientists, like all people, actually are philosophers. > It is because I saw the comment as being part of the genre of people who attempt to raise the status of their field My field is not philosophy. > by laying an unwarranted claim to the accomplishments of others. Neither did I make any claims in my original comment. You seem to have extrapolated quite a lot from a single sentence. > Philosophy and philosophers do not deserve credit for the accomplishments of science. The origin of science is obviously philosophical; indeed, Western science is theological in origin (and so is Eastern if you want to broaden your definition of theology a bit). It is equally obvious, if perhaps a bit ironic, that modern science has distanced itself from its earlier foundations.