• Ansiktsburk
    192
    Hi all, long since I wrote here, I just started a new user when Philosophy Forums just died, and I didnt like the layout on this site but will make a fresh start now...

    I was pretty active when Philosophy Forums was running. A happy amateur from a ninetofive background where people were supposed to study to get a job instead of humanities even if you're a humanities person. So I become a computer engineer with philosophy as a hobby. An armchair philosopher I suppose is the anglo-american term for it.

    I got the title from two threads. One which seem to be pretty acadademic-institution-ish and one that like everyone could take part in worldwide. Even me from the dark Scandinavia...

    What I look for is the level in-between. Or rather, how the world of "papers" are engineered(i'm an engineer, used to bring the stuff the techical science guys invent into mobile phones, IPads and stuff) into the real world. How could the science of philosophy spill down to make good statements about "political correctness"? Could even the philosophical institutions have good things to say about things like "political correctness", "global warming", "Trump" and stuff like that? Philosophy is the love of thinking and knowledge, so I guest philosophical research should give that kind of knowledge? Should there be philosophical engineers who brought the knowledge to the "real world"?
  • unenlightened
    9.2k
    Wittgenstein was an engineer. One of his analogies for philosophy was that it was using language to do nothing, rather as the mechanic runs an engine on idle, in order to tune it and adjust things, not to go anywhere or do any work. So it doesn't even intend to 'get anywhere' but only to make it easier for scientists politicians and saints to say clearly what is on the minds. Maybe something like error trapping in your field?
  • Ansiktsburk
    192
    How can I explain the importance of this matter? Which I firmly believe is at the heart of Philosophy itself and even transcends Philosophy. And is of uttermost importance. To the world. Now.

    Reading Russells History of western philo, towards the final chapters you get the Idea why there is no way from the the academy to the public. Philosophy was stupid, having ideas about how the world was supposed to be understood, when it was SCIENCE that had the answers. Philosophy should be piecemeal. And not meddling with with the world as such. Thing is - i think - philosophers have really misunderstood the meaning of philosophy. Philosophy want to seek truth. People in common want that. An answer. Things thought to an end. When I read Timaios, what really bugged me is how Timaios talks. He takes those polygons of fire as something given. There is no probability that the theory of the element might be false described.

    Socrates dont do that. When he talks about love, friendship, he maps the area. Investigates. In some dialogs he even comes to the conclusion that we cannot say. And that people might do later. Reading that sent shivers down my spine. Reading this from a guy dead since more than 2000 years ago.

    Things-can-be-difficult. And people hate that. Bosses hates that. People commenting Trump, Brexit, global warming or immigration questions hate that. Fundamentalists hate that. People whining about the weather reports being inexact hate that. People going to the doctor wich unclear stomach problems hate that. But they are. Difficult. And that should be stated.

    The advances in Natural Science have done good. Sure. And natural science seem to give answers. Nice little formulas So people want that all over the place. Also In the world of humans. And see, philosophy was stupid, those philosophers couldnt think up penicillin or say what diseases are. And here is the problem. Philosophy should be the first science. It should be in the vanguard of thinking. It should handle what is really unclear. The things that sciece yet cannot say anything about. And what science really cannot say anything at all about - yet - is the world of humans.

    It’s all very well to write modal logic diagrams in Papers about if a dog is a dog in a parallel universe. But really, the First Science should be able to do better. The brain is a tremendously powerful tool, and how to think as good as possible about things should be topic of philosophy. And the world needs help. So, how can we bring the best of thoughts into the world? In the US, I have been told, people at least read philosophy in educations for people that are supposed to rule. Education for Priests include philosophy. But I would like more. Who should say how you REALLY should think about something like Global Warming, what to do about it? The only thing that seems clear is - it is difficult, beyond scientifical results. Socrates, help us out here! And he will not give us a nice little answer.

    So here is the task for a Philosophical engineer. Take the best of thoughts from people thinking best about thinking out into the world. No less should the ambition for philosophy be.

    Pardon my poor english btw.
  • ssu
    8.6k
    How could the science of philosophy spill down to make good statements about "political correctness"? Could even the philosophical institutions have good things to say about things like "political correctness", "global warming", "Trump" and stuff like that? Philosophy is the love of thinking and knowledge, so I guest philosophical research should give that kind of knowledge? Should there be philosophical engineers who brought the knowledge to the "real world"?Ansiktsburk
    C.P. Snow, a chemist by profession, wrote a famous book called "Two Cultures" in 1959 where he argued that the intellectual life had divided to the sciences and humanities, where the latter basically was the problem and had gotten lost and the sciences still had it in themselves the beautiful objectives. Yet in the end of his book, he purposed that science could perhaps be used to find solutions to current problems, like the Cold War.

    In hindsight we know how the Cold War between the two Superpowers was solved. It ended with the collapse of the Soviet Empire. So the question is, what kind of solution science could have given like C.P. Snow argued? If we think about science as a method, then the "scientific" answer, which would have correctly forcasted the future, would have been "the other Superpower will collapse basically by it's own fault and thus the Cold War will end". Hardly an idea that Snow had in his mind and hardly an answer people would have cheered to back in the 1960's. In fact, the whole idea that C.P. Snow introduced is quite bizarre and simply reflects his condescending attitude towards fields like political science.

    You see, answers to political questions based on philosophy or that use the scientific method will simply be treated similar as answers based on political ideologies. Actually, we do use already a lot of science to guide our policies when it comes to the environment etc. (at least in Europe). Yet the answers cannot escape the realm of the political environment, because people will simply choose the facts they want.

    the First Science should be able to do better.Ansiktsburk
    Yes. But do understand that we want normative answers: how should we act that things would be better? It is a totally different question than what science replies to, the objective question: "what is the reality?". Science should not and cannot give us answers to normative questions. Politics is all about answering to normative questions. Politics simply cannot be answered by science, and people have known this at least since Voltaire made ridicule out of Leibniz with Dr. Pangloss.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    . But do understand that we want normative answers: how should we act that things would be better?ssu

    I don't believe that there are any normative facts, so I'm not looking for normative answers from anything.
  • ssu
    8.6k
    I don't believe that there are any normative facts, so I'm not looking for normative answers from anything.Terrapin Station
    That's the problem!

    Normative questions cannot be answered objectively. Yes, you can partly use some objective observations (that have been done using science), but then the normative part: what to do to make things better has nothing to do with science.

    Yet this doesn't mean that the normative questions aren't important. On the contrary. Answers to these kind of question are far more in the realm of philosophy.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    But I know what I like/what I'd prefer, and I've long known that. I don't need anyone else to help me figure out what I prefer.
  • ssu
    8.6k

    Political questions seldom touch directly the individual, only indirectly. Like what should we do about climate change or should we do something?
  • Fooloso4
    6.1k
    How could the science of philosophy spill down to make good statements about "political correctness"?Ansiktsburk

    First philosophy as understood by Aristotle is the science of science, that is, knowledge of knowledge. Science, as the term is most often used today, is not the whole of science. Underlying the inquiry is the assumption that such a thing is possible.

    In some dialogs he even comes to the conclusion that we cannot say.Ansiktsburk

    That the inquiry often end in aporia is of fundamental importance. It is easier to see in Plato than in Aristotle, but for both the concern is to protect knowledge and inquiry. Plato introduces a world of Forms accessible via noesis, Aristotle the rigorous and unadorned work of reason or dianoia. Plato conjures the road from dianoia to noesis, making clear that the fundamental questions do not yield to reasoned inquiry and require some kind of transcendence or exstasis. Aristotle proceeds as if reasoned inquiry does lead to the desired results, wisdom, but a careful reading shows that this is not the case. But this poses a grave threat to philosophy. If we cannot obtain knowledge and truth then we become vulnerable to an unending parade of claims of truth and knowledge by sophists, demagogues, and theologians.

    Plato and Aristotle possess Socrates "human wisdom" and attempt to protect inquiry from those who claim divine knowledge. They are skeptics in the ancient sense of the word, those who proceed via inquiry. Zetetic skepticism is very different from the skepticism of the moderns who put doubt first and foremost, rendering inquiry pointless.

    The examined life is the inquiry into and practice of how best to live given our ignorance of what is best. First philosophy, the science of science, is about knowledge of our ignorance. This is both the beginning and the end.

    This is not to deny that we know anything. We know a great deal more than I think Socrates would have imagined, but all of our knowledge does not yield answers to the question of how best to live, either privately or publicly. The threat is not simply from those who claim to have the answers but, as Nietzsche knew well, from nihilism. The absence of divine wisdom means that we must resort to phronesis or practical wisdom. In place of eternal verities are temporal goals and fallible strategies for how to achieve them.

    If we are to use the engineering analogy we should keep in mind that we are not dealing with things that behave in predictable ways or that can be engineered to work in predictable ways. Human beings do not have fixed natures but we are not completely malleable either. There are fundamental tensions at play between freedom and conformity, what one may take to be in his or her own best interest and the interest of the society, and social norms or custom and rational order.
  • Ansiktsburk
    192
    Being from a hockey, beer and supercharging car background then reading at university and ending up in an environment of humanists and teachers, I have friends spanning all the way from SJW to ANTI-SJW. In my home country, Sweden, there are two big questions that are at the focus of those two groups: Global warming and Refugee immigration from middle east. And the ones that are pro one of those questions are pro the other(which really is not especially logical) in the way you suspect.

    And, even highly intelligent, people from one side of the ring refuses to listen to arguments from the other side. And since I cannot keep my mouth shut and really love the Socratian way of exploring questions, I do challenge my friends, especially on Facebook, to try to "lift them self up" to a level where you explore the questions instead of "taking sides" and only listen to arguments that match your "belief"

    It's something like that I dream of coming from the philosophical institutions, apart from modal logic diagrams. Ways to transcend questions like this, and even more, transcent discussions even further - should people be SJW:s or not? Why are some people SJW and some Anti?.
    Not to give "decisions" but to help decision makers and the general public to think correctly about questions like this.
    How can we trust scientists giving unbiased statements about global warming? How can we judge the probability of different environmental schemes? What is the probablility that immigration leads to increase in crimes. What is the cost for immigration for tax payers? How can that be measured up against the decrease in suffering for people in bad places? What aid is logical to demand from a specific country?

    For sure, like the Cold War adressed by Snow as above, these are really hard questions to answer, and in hindsight you might say that "who could have imagined this" about the outcomes. It's not easy.
  • Ansiktsburk
    192
    And maybe even more:
    OK, you have explored language, logic and such. How things can be said or not. How to bring that out to people trying to argue for stuff in the real world? How to discuss things properly?
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