Daily Nous has posted a link to a short piece by Brian Frances, "Why I Think Research in Non-Applied, Non-Interdisciplinary, Non-Historical Philosophy is Worthwhile", in which Frances responds to (broadly) kinds of worries that Unger, Searle, I and others have raised about analytic philosophy recently: namely, its focus on abstract, conceptual "puzzles." Again, (and I can't stress this enough!) I do not think all–or even most–philosophy is guilty of falling into the errors I have been pressing. That being said, I think the worries are worth worrying about–both philosophically, but also sociologically (insofar as the problems professional philosophers prioritize arguably has effects on who is/is not attacted to or included in the discipline).
Anyway, I read Frances' piece with interest, and imagine that many readers are sympathetic with it. In brief, Frances argues that philosophy's "abstract, non-applied, non-interdisciplinary, non-historical" puzzles are genuine puzzles, and thus, that time on them is well spent. Ultimately, Frances does three things:
- He attempts to motivate two traditional puzzles (the skeptical problem and problem of material composition).
- He suggests that critics of philosophy's focus on these puzzles have yet to make a convincing case that they are not well-motivated, and
- He contends, on the basis of (1) and (2), that philosophy is mostly–and properly–about "PAINTS: problems, arguments, ideas, notions, theories, and solutions.
I remain unpersuaded on all three points.
First, on (1), Frances attempts to motivate the problems of skepticism and material composition by reference to sets of inconsistent statements that "seem intuitive." Following Moti Mizrahi, I do not think philosophy should be based on intuition mongering. When it comes to many philosophical problems–zombies, composition, whatever–some people have the relevant intuitions, others don't. I, for one, don't have any clear intuitions about mereology, and following Chalmers, I don't find myself at all moved by skepticism: I think the world we perceive around us is a world, whatever a world may be (in which case we plainly have knowledge of it, and the skeptical problem in epistemology does not so much as arise). A mature philosophy, in my view, should not be based on intuitions but on data from the world. One reason I think this comes from this article by M.B. Willard and this one by Gian-Carlo Rota (and actually, this one from Willard as well) Philosophy not tethered to the world–philosophy based on intuition alone–suffers from a profound undetermination problem similar to that of (but more serious than) philosophy of science. According to the undetermination problem, there are always, in principle, an infinite number of theories consistent with observation. In science, we have pragmatic grounds for resolving the underdetermination problem (e.g. simple theories have been more accurate in the past, etc.). But, in the case of abstract philosophical arguments, there appear to be no such grounds. Different people have different intuitions, and there are always a vast array of disparate theories–mereological nihilism, compositionalism, etc.–can always be rendered consistent with "the data" (whatever one's favored intuitions are).
Second, I don't think it's true that critics of philosophy's focus on abstract puzzles have failed to make a cogent case. Quine made a case: that philosophy is based on the supposition that words and concepts have "meanings", when in fact they don't. Wittgenstein made a case: that ordinary everyday concepts are fundamentally vague and possessing many possible uses, and that philosophy that aims at clarifying or settling "the meaning" of these fundamentally vague/multi-use concepts fundamentally misunderstands language. (Important note: Wittgenstein was on board with the idea that philosophy should be as clear as possible in the Tractatus, but he came to believe in his mature philosophy that this is all a mistake–that philosophy must operate within vague language, understanding it as a natural phenomenon (language as use), and leave it as it is). Unger, apparently, will also be making a case. And others have made the case too. Rota, a mathematician (not a philosopher), argues in his Synthese paper–just as I have argued previously–that analytic philosophy has been based in part on a false analogy with mathematics. Mathematics aims at clarity, Rota says, because its concepts are clear. It does not aim to make unclear things clear. It starts with clear ideas and aims to derive mathematical truths from them. But philosophy aims to make vague concepts clear–which, Rota says (and I agree), is simply to alter them, attempting to impose clarity where there is none (and which cannot be done in any non-arbitrary way, in my view, without tethering concepts to the empirical world).
Finally, however, I really want to focus on Frances' third claim: (3) that philosophy is mostly–and properly–about "PAINTS: problems, arguments, ideas, notions, theories, and solutions." My main worry about this is that Frances–in line with the title of his article–seems to take "problems, arguments, ideas, notions, theories, and solutions" as fundamentally perspective- and context-independent, as though problems, arguments, etc. are just "out there" as Platonic Forms or whatever waiting to be discovered. But this, I think, is just wrong. What one sees as a problem, or argument, idea, plausible theory, or solution depends in large part on perspective. Indeed, I was really struck by the fact that "insight", "perspective", and "understanding" were not on Frances' list of what philosophy "mostly is." A person who suffers injustice faces a moral (and possibly existential) problem that someone who has never faced injustice does not face: the problem of how to respond to oppression. Such a person–the oppressed–may not see mereology as a problem, or, if they do, as one not worth spending much time on. This is not to say that mereology isn't a problem. What it is to say, however, is that problems are not just "out there" waiting to be discovered by people in philosophy rooms. Many philosophical problems are experienced, and take perspective to pose, theorize about, and solve. The true psychopath, for instance, sees no reason at all to consider human suffering a problem. They are emotitionally and cognitively insensitive to it as a philosophical problem. Similarly, when I make a mistake a desire forgiveness–or when I wonder if I should forgive those who wrong me–that strikes me as problem. Does it strike everyone that way? No! The vengeful person thinks the solution is obvious: forgiveness is a waste of time, and revenge feels good. What counts as a philosophical problem, worthy idea, theory, or solution depends, in large part, on perspective; on who one is, and how is one is situated in the world. We ignore this, I believe, at great (philosopical) peril.
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