Now where's my old sig gone? Ah yes...

Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought. — John Cowper Powys

Picasso said the same about art, in respect of the cave paintings of Lascaux. It was all there from the beginning.

But the religion of progress is a fairly recent degeneration; the ancients always presumed that the golden age had passed.

Do you really need a definition of progress? We can assume that something on the order of mysteries revealed, questions answered, new mysteries opened up, new questions formulated, would be what progress would look like.

I think I would say that philosophy is generally in the business of disenchantment. So from my point of view the heroes are the sceptics rather than the builders of grand theories, and since there is always another builder with another grand theory, there is always work to do, but it is always a demolition job, and that is why there is no progress. We never quite become completely disenchanted, and so never quite return to the golden age.

"Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men." John Dewey

Progress requires that problems we face be resolved or mitigated. Traditional philosophical problems don't lend themselves to resolution in any manner that can be confirmed to the satisfaction of more than a few. I would say that those who have established that certain philosophical problems are illusory have in a sense resolved those problems, and to the extent their efforts have resulted in a lessening of the time and effort spent in address non-problems, there has been progress of a sort. Perhaps this sort of thing is related to the disenchantment you speak of.

Perhaps Dewey was engaged in wishful thinking in proposing that philosophy become a method for dealing with the "problems of men." But if philosophers turned their attention to considering those problems and recommending solutions to them (and if anybody paid them any attention, I suppose I should say) it might become possible to assess whether those recommendations solve the problems, and therefore whether philosophy could be said to progress, based on whether the recommendations were successful.

There are philosophers who deal with the "problems of men." Peter Singer, for instance, is an advocate for the global poor and for animal rights. Other philosophers, such as Martha Nussbaum and Christina Hoff Sommers grapple with issues surrounding contemporary feminism, the law, and related topics.

Other philosophers deal in more abstract problems, which are of less practical relevance. Why is this such a problem? We accept that some scientific work has immediate technological applications, and other is pure "pie in the sky" research. Why oughtn't it be the same for philosophy?

You're quite right; there are philosophers who are addressing those problems now. I should have noted that.

As for the more abstract, there is no problem with them, but if the "problem" addressed is one that isn't subject to a satisfactory resolution, even to a reasonable degree of probability, it's hard to even speak of progress being made. I don't know what pie in the sky science you're referring to, but it may be that the author of the article would maintain that progress isn't being made as to that kind of science.

There are many scientific fields and endeavors I would consider to be "pie in the sky" (which I would define as lacking immediate practical technological benefits, and which I don't mean pejoratively in this context), e.g. particle physics, cosmology, most of astronomy, paleontology, etc. No reasonable person could claim that "progress" hasn't been made in these fields unless they're employing a highly idiosyncratic sense of the term.

We accept that some scientific work has immediate technological applications, and other is pure "pie in the sky" research. Why oughtn't it be the same for philosophy? — Arkady

I think possibly because the scientific pie in the sky research is at least headed for a consensus. This is why we give grants to theoretical physicists and not philosophers.

I thought academic philosophers did receive grants to fund their work (e.g. from the NEH or a similar funding agency).

In the good old days, science was known as 'natural philosophy'. Life was simpler back then, and these questions were not asked.

I hadn't heard of the NEH. But I looked it up and learned that the NEH has a budget of $160 million. The NSF has a budget of $7.0 billion.

Uh, ok. Does it follow that the NEH doesn't fund philosophy (again, I'm not certain that it does, but I thought that it, or similar funding agencies, provided grants to philosophers)?

Philosophical research involves a lot of thinking. Scientific research involves expensive equipment.

True, but there are still conferences and symposiums for philosophy that cost money.

Dietrich's case is exactly what I was trying to argue about in a different thread. I enjoyed the essay, although I felt it was a little clunky at times. Now I'm looking for a good counterargument that doesn't just validate the original argument.

I can see a possible counterargument. The author uses the examples of philosophical "camps" a lot, such as consequentialism vs deontology, as examples of the gridlock in philosophical communities.

But look at this forum. We have a bunch of people with differing opinions discussing topics and trying to change each others' minds. Sure, we might not belong to strict philosophical camps, but we still hold positions, This is no different from the academic camps. These guys have just thought about it much more and are still in debate.

Unless I was misunderstanding him, the author seemed to be concluding that philosophy inevitably leads to gridlock via camps. I'd argue that this is the inherent nature of philosophy, and it is foolish to assume otherwise.

I hesitate to say anything about particle physics, but if "progress" includes an increase in knowledge and understanding of the subject matter of inquiry, then I think we can speak of progress in the areas of science you refer to.

Who needs progress?

In the good old days, science was known as 'natural philosophy'. Life was simpler back then, and these questions were not asked. — unenlightened

Or, alternatively, life was so much harder back then that nobody had the time to ask these questions. Efficiency in productivity and more leisure time (i.e., time to think) might be the greatest development for philosophy.

This is my position on philosophy. There is no progress, and philosophers need to stop fooling themselves into thinking there will be.

If there is no progress in philosophy, then why is that? Are the questions that philosophers ask unanswerable? Are they bewitched by language? Is perhaps the very foundation of philosophical thought from which questions flow mistaken? Is it that we're cognitively closed to such matters?

I think on the one hand there is progress, and on the other, there isn't. There's progress in the proliferation of possible answers to questions, and new questions which arise. Philosophical inquiry evolves over time, building on itself, despite the lack of consensus.

But there isn't progress in that fundamental questions of metaphysics, epistemology, morality and aesthetics seem to never reach a conclusion. We can't say beyond reasonable doubt and with consensus that we've arrived at the truth as to the nature of universals or whether the ends justify the means in some cases, for example. There remain deep divisions on all these matters, and an objective person might say all answers provided are problematic in one or more ways.

TLDR - philosophical inquiry grows over time, but the truth remains elusive.

As an addendum to my post above, Simon Blackburn wrote that philosophy exists because there is a loose fit between mind and world. I found that fascinating. Our intuitions and concepts seem good until scrutinized, and then they come apart in all sorts of ways.

For philosophers to make progress, do they need to make the mind "fit" the world? Is it a grand puzzle to sort out which we apes might not be quite smart enough to do given our mammalian baggage? Or perhaps that's just one more misleading metaphor.

Lets look at the dissection of natural philosophy. If it is of the soul it is religion - which is just symbol and ritual, so they don't have problems (not the type with solutions, anyway). That leaves us with philosophy and science. If we have a philosophical question that is answerable, which is to say, we can prove and demonstrate the answer - then it becomes science. Any question that can't be demonstratively proven remains philosophy. Hence, any philosophy that 'makes progress' (answers a question) is science, Science is progress in 'natural philosophy', and what we call 'philosophy' is necessarily the school of unanswered (and answerable) questions. Furthermore, it could be said, with the dissection of natural philosophy, that anything answered using math and experiment is a scientific question, and all other questions are philosophical (or religious).

Questions that can be answered are necessarily scientific, and questions that can't are philosophical. The dissection of natural philosophy requires that science is the progress while philosophy is that on which no progress has been made - because what we call 'progress', culturally, is answering questions.

As for the more abstract, there is no problem with them, but if the "problem" addressed is one that isn't subject to a satisfactory resolution, even to a reasonable degree of probability, it's hard to even speak of progress being made. — Ciceronianus the White

Sometimes the progress being made is in us. Getting a better grip on an unsolvable problem makes us better thinkers, which prepares us to better solve the problems of man.

This is why we give grants to theoretical physicists and not philosophers. — darthbarracuda

There are plenty of grants for philosophers—even for metaphysicians!—and they don't all come from the NEH. Off the top of my head, there's also the American Council of Learned Societies, the Templeton Foundation, and the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Point taken. But my impression is philosophy isn't primarily devoted to making us better thinkers through the consideration of unsolvable problems.

Philosophy functions roughly as a research program whose output is other research programs. By that metric it's been extremely fruitful.

Which is arguably equally true of science. The difference with science is that it generates new possibilities for technological inventiveness, and thus possesses very obvious practical applications.

Point taken. But my impression is philosophy isn't primarily devoted to making us better thinkers through the consideration of unsolvable problems. — Ciceronianus the White

I never said that this was a primary goal of philosophy. The point was twofold. First, contrary to your claim that it is hard to speak of progress being made when the problem addressed is not subject to a satisfactory resolution, I say that there is progress being made. It's just not where you expected it to be. Second, insofar as you are endorsing the Dewey quote you posted ("philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men"), I am pointing out that addressing such problems plays an important role in enabling philosophers to deal with the problems of men. Thus you don't really have any grounds for objecting to such pursuits.

The difference with science is that it generates new possibilities for technological inventiveness, and thus possesses very obvious practical applications. — John

And philosophy helps us to learn more and more about how to live well, which also has very obvious practical applications. The technologies it refines are the oldest kind of all: cognitive, linguistic, moral, and political.

It's important to understand that philosophy is not science, and that to expect it to produce results on the magnitude and abundance of science is misunderstanding what philosophy is and what it does. Progress can be made in philosophy, but not in the manner of scientists being awarded the Nobel prize by discovering the Higgs Boson. There's not going to be an E = MC^2 in philosophy, although personally I feel Kant comes close.

How is one to determine whether a philosophical problem cannot be satisfactorily resolved? And even if it cannot be, hasn't it still been paradoxically resolved to a worthwhile degree of satisfaction? Namely that one has reached a conclusion regarding the problem, and can move on to other problems.

There are few - if any - philosophical problems of which I could say that I've satisfactorily resolved, but there are just as few - perhaps even fewer - of which I could say that they cannot be satisfactorily resolved. Hence, in my view, progress is at least possible.

But I don't just think that progress is possible; I think that progress is made with each and every conclusion that one reaches - or even approaches.

You seem to be stating that there is progress being made in addressing problems which have no satisfactory resolution. It just doesn't involve resolving those problems. Well if that's the case then it's clear I'm wrong.

You seem to be stating that there is progress being made in addressing problems which have no satisfactory resolution. It just doesn't involve resolving those problems. — Ciceronianus the White

Correct.

Well if that's the case then it's clear I'm wrong. — Ciceronianus the White

Which was more or less my point. 8-)

I'm not big on the idea that philosophical problems are perennial, unanswerable, or mysterious. To take just one example, I believe that the so-called 'problem of perception' was actually definitively resolved over two thousand years ago in ancient Greece. The reason it persists is not because it remains mysterious, but because people are not very good at arguing. With other sciences you don't have to be that good at arguing, because eventually some material technological circumstance (or ideological one) forces people's hands and everyone just accepts that there's some sort of consensus on something (even though there's probably not). Progress largely comes from forgetting about disputes, rather than resolving them, and it's hard to forget in philosophy because it's a discipline obsessed with its own history, and whose results don't come in technological form.

How is one to determine whether a philosophical problem cannot be satisfactorily resolved? — Sapientia

I agree that this is a real issue for those who would decry the study of problems they have deemed unresolvable, and I have serious doubts about many claims that are made along those lines. But I also think the objection to engaging with such problems can be largely diffused by pointing out that it doesn't necessarily matter whether the problems themselves are resolvable so long as engaging with them at least provides other benefits.

And even if it cannot be, hasn't it still been paradoxically resolved to a worthwhile degree of satisfaction? — Sapientia

I think it might depend on how we come to this conclusion. If the problem is one that we think must have an answer, but not one we can find, there is bound to be a certain residual dissatisfaction with stopping there. If, on the other hand, we declare it unresolvable because it turns out that the problem was ill-conceived in the first place, I think you are correct that dissolving the problem counts as a sort of resolution.

But I don't just think that progress is possible, I think that progress is made with each and every conclusion that one reaches or even approaches. — Sapientia

This is an interesting idea. It mirrors something I've argued before, which is that every dead end we discover is a mark of progress because we often have to figure out 10,000 ways that don't work before we figure out the one that might. Learning that x won't work lets us put ¬x into the pool of accumulated data.