Don’t cross that line
Massimo Pigliucci is patrolling the borders again.
Take, for instance, my recurring argument that some (but not all!) of the “new atheists” engage in scientistic attitudes by overplaying the epistemological power of science while downplaying (or even simply negating) the notion that science fundamentally depends on non-empirical (i.e., philosophical) assumptions to even get started.
But if science depends on those assumptions why aren’t those assumptions simply part of science? Why aren’t the assumptions part of what is meant by the word ‘science’?
We already have science to help us solve scientific problems, philosophy does something else by using different tools, so why compare apples and oranges?
But if science rests on philosophical assumptions, then philosophy doesn’t (exclusively) do something else. If science rests on philosophical assumptions then the two are entangled to some extent.
Pigliucci goes on to say as much, in a way, but he also reverts to the border-patrolling.
So when some commentators for instance defend the Dawkins- and Coyne-style (scientistic) take on atheism, i.e., that science can mount an attack on all religious beliefs, they are granting too much to science and too little to philosophy. Yes, science can empirically test specific religious claims (intercessory prayer, age of the earth, etc.), but the best objections against the concept of, say, an omnibenevolent and onmnipowerful god, are philosophical in nature (e.g., the argument from evil).
But the argument from evil can be at least partly empirical – we wouldn’t know there was any ‘evil’ i.e. suffering apart from our own if it couldn’t.
Now why is it that so many people take sides on a debate that doesn’t make much sense, rather than rejoice in what the human mind can achieve through the joint efforts of two of its most illustrious intellectual traditions?
Well right – but if it’s a matter of joint efforts why worry so much about the borders?
Philosophers love to chew over the science/philosophy question. I prefer the take on it from the late Polish philosopher, L. Kolakowski, who said:
“The relation between science and philosophy is like the symbiotic relationship between the countryside and town. The former provides the latter with food receiving garbage in return.”
Massimo and others over there make way too much of a big deal about turf between science and philosophy when it really is not important.
There are also accusations of scientism which are nonsense.
100% agreed.
The word “scientism”, which gets tossed around by some commentators, doesn’t really make much sense unless we presuppose that science is discrete from philosophy. “Scientism” is the thesis that scientific rationality is the only form (or best form) of rationality. And that presupposes that the notion of discrete “forms of rationality” is intelligible at all.
Modern proponents of “scientism” are immune to critiques like Prof. Pigliucci’s. Prof. Mark Wilson (Pittsburgh), for example, who sometimes quips “I yield the lamp of scientism to no-one!”, also regards science as a refined and rarified version of “common sense”.
There are of course some philosophers out there who think they’re doing something outside of science or discontinuous from it. I think that makes for bad philosophy, so it’s disheartening to learn that Prof. Pigliucci counts himself amongst that number. Take the formulation: “[science and philosophy] work by different methods (empirically-based hypothesis testing vs. reason-based logical analysis)”. Do minimally competent scientists necessarily depend upon reason-based logical analysis? Yes, obviously. Do minimally competent philosophers modify their views in light of new empirical findings, and put themselves at pains to tell of the conditions under which their theories could be false? Yes — arguably. But the latter part is an argument, and its negation is not an obvious truism as Pigliucci would have it.
He makes a decent point about the fear of colonization of the lifeworld, though. For one thing, science as a practice does demand a lot of trust from people on the outside of it, at least until the results come in. (Invent me a hoverbike and my trust in you has been vindicated.) That can be alienating, even if it’s a necessary kind of alienation. For another thing, contemporary science is wrapped up in monied interests, which at its worst can and does lead to gross distortions in the ways we think about things. One of my favorite features of Ben Goldacre’s writing is that he actually sympathizes with the anti-corporatists, and happily provides grist for their mill by giving all kinds of examples of corporate blowhards rigging and distorting evidence for their own vulgar gain, even while he corrects these activists for their shoddy criticism.
The scientific lifeworld really is colonizing. This is messed up. And so we need clever, logical, philosophical, empirical people like Goldacre to stick a hole in the frauds as they come. But this fact doesn’t reinforce Pigliucci’s point; it undermines it.
Yes, I don’t know why Massimo feels so strongly about this.
Science and philosophy are continuous. Admittedly, literary criticism and philosophy are also continuous, and literary critics are typically (though not always!) doing something rather non-scientific: trying to interpret particular texts.
But surely what philosophers of religion are doing with, say, the problem of evil is very thickly continuous with science.
To me, this is mainly a practical pedagogical argument about how universities should best be structured – what academic organisational units there should be and which things should be taught in which. When Massimo wants to transform it into a deep argument about espistemology, and to castigate some of his allies for “scientism”, it’s not productive. In fact, it undermines his allies unnecessarily.
However, he and I have to agree to disagree about this one. *sigh*
But…isn’t he complaining about the idea that philosophy is worthless because science does everything better? Isn’t his project here to defend philosophy from the charge of irrelevance?
I don’t read him as saying that philosophy can’t be continuous with science, or that no part of science is philosophical, but rather than philosophy is a worthwhile endeavor that can’t be collapsed into science.
Jenavir, his argument is stated most succinctly with these theses:
“Now, it seems to me obvious, but apparently it needs to be stated that:
a) philosophy and science are two distinct activities…
b) they work by different methods (empirically-based hypothesis testing vs. reason-based logical analysis);
c) they inform each other in an inter-dependent fashion…”
(b) is the key. (b) is a premise he’s endorsing as “obvious”, and is ostensibly meant to prop up his conclusion somehow or other, whatever that conclusion may be. But as you suggest, his conclusion could be the strong form (“they ought to be distinguished”) or the weak form (“they are distinct”). However, what’s significant is that we can’t possibly reject either of these conclusions so long as (b) is left standing. It is possible, though, to reject (b) and for his argument to follow through: i.e., if he’s making the weak claim. But if he intends to make the weak claim, then he ends up being in sync with the continuity thesis, since I can just say, “yes, there a priori philosophers are out there, and they riddle our journals with bullshit”. At that point, our agreement or disagreement with him will be uninteresting, because (a) alone is all he has left, and while it is true it also admits of arbitrary divisions.
Aaarggh, I’m a li’l bit dyslexic this morning. That should have been “epistemology”, though I imagine that “ESPistemology” might be an interesting field – presumably a branch of paranormal psychology.
I’m an ESPistempologist, that’s why I never noticed the typo, I don’t read Russell’s words to know what he is thinking.
I re-read your piece at Sentient Whatsit earlier today, Russell, and found the pragmatic plus disciplinary version of the border very helpful.
Part of why I dislike Massimo’s take is that it seems to be a ‘keep off the grass’ sign – it seems to resent Jerry Coyne’s daring to think about the subject at all. But we all get to think about theism, because theism is highly public. Too much of what Massimo says sounds like ‘This is our stuff.’ But if theism is wide-open for entry, as it is, it also has to be wide open for exit. Atheism can’t be reserved for trained philosophers.
I’m glad I don’t care about this stuff. We are engaged in a political struggle. We want to be free. Philosophers have been historically pretty useless in this regard (when they haven’t been actively poodling for various dictators).
And if philosophers think they’re so damned important, can I ask when we’ll see the funding for the Large Syllogism Collider come through?
Don’t be a prat, Valdemar. And if you think philosophers have nothing to contribute to political struggles for freedom, go educate yourself by reading some Amartya Sen, for example.
I’ll take “Complete Ignorance of History” for $500, Alex.
Yes, you’re right about the ambiguity, Benjamin. Though I don’t know that the a priori philosophers peddle bullshit, either.
I didn’t see the keep-off-the-grass sign, OB, but I definitely agree that attitude is a bad one. Theism, like many other philosophical subjects, ought not to be merely the province of trained experts. It’s everyday philosophy, the sort of thing we should all think about.
I suspect that philosophers who try the “keep off the grass” bit are reacting to a dismissive attitude to their subject. And I do sympathize with that, but the answer isn’t to make the subject even more specialized and insulated from the layman than it has to be.
Haven’t we heard Pugliucci’s argument from another quarter as well? Like don’t the theists say that there is a border between science and religion and each to its own turf? Pugliucci is borrowing the same game plan.
“Argument from Evil” is best against God – well it is not going to work if the god can also cause some mischief. And what is Evil anyways? Do we need more philosophy to define evil? I think we do. Where do we stop? Pugliucci is building a structure on thin air.
His article is very disappointing and he just wants to deny the 3rd culture and go back to the tradition with 2 cultures only.
In quantum physics, rationalism breaks down, and empiricism rules. You cannot deduce that a particle is here, until you observe it. That is why science rules over philosophy.
‘I’ll take “Complete Ignorance of History” for $500, Alex.’
You’ll lose, Wes.
Nope, you’re right, it was a stupid post and there’s no point in defending it. I just read the papers far too much, and really need a holiday.
I also need to read that book about truth by Simon Blackburn that I bought a while back.
Empiricism is a philosophy, Hamidreza. There’s really no escaping philosophy.
The ‘keep off the grass’ interpretation came partly from MP’s earlier article on this subject, and doubtless also from a strikingly rude and condescending comment he posted on Jerry Coyne’s blog in the wake of that article.
“Science and philosophy are continuous. Admittedly, literary criticism and philosophy are also continuous, and literary critics are typically (though not always!) doing something rather non-scientific: trying to interpret particular texts.”
I’ve been pleased as punch to see you making this argument, Russell — it’s similar to my own position, though I’ve been unable to articulate nearly so well as you, and I haven’t seen it otherwise put so succinctly as in your blog.
Anyone arguing that science and philosophy are completely distinct disciplines must be compartmentalizing history and theory. Science arose out of a number of conversations, mostly taking place in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, about how Natural Philosophy should be pursued. Modern science is essentially the result of a stalemate there: science’s scope is not limited to empirical results, otherwise Einstein’s original papers on relativity would not have qualified as science. Relativity was advanced as a philosophical analysis of motion — Einstein offered premises (essentially Newton’s laws of motion plus the assumption that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant) and then, using propositions derived from those premises, obtained purely mathematical results.
The need for relativity was philosophical rather than empirical as well: the notion of an absolute frame of reference was not well-defined (definitions, of course, are not empirical, so that this was less of an empirical issue than a philosophical one), and relativity was a philosophical argument that there was no need for such an entity.
This is just one example of many that spring to mind where scientific work relies mainly on philosophical modes of argument rather than empirical ones. Personally, I think the correct way of looking at this is that science, like literary analysis or theology, is a particular sort of philosophy — that is to say, a subfield of philosophy defined by the subject of the arguments being made (in the case of science, we are making arguments about properties of the natural world; in literary criticism, about the context of the piece, the intended audience, intentions of the author, etc.).
People like to push the “different ways of knowing” angle, but they don’t seem to want to acknowledge that different ways of knowing should nevertheless arrive at the same answer.
For instance, literary criticism and science are not orthogonal as many seem to think. When defending a historical thesis, a convincing argument is made when literary analysis of primary sources (e.g. the documentary hypothesis concerning the Old Testament) accords with the scientific evidence (e.g. the lack of archaeological evidence for the events of Genesis or Exodus). In fact, a literary argument about the Pentateuch that contradicts the archaeological (scientific) evidence is not convincing at all. Even literary criticism can’t ignore the epistemological conclusions we draw from science.
This was what you said:
Let’s just do this one philosopher at a time. Look up the name “John Locke”.
I need more love.
I love you to bits, John!
(There are those who say that as a philosopher you make a fine journalist. I won’t hear a word of it.)
Empiricism is a philosophy, Hamidreza. There’s really no escaping philosophy.
Jenavir, this is a tautology and not interesting. Like saying science is subject to theism because God drew up the laws of physics and science must obey the laws of nature – therefore science is subservient to God. This is a circular argument.
Now – cant we simplify the matter and just say science is empiricism and philosophy is rationalism (e.g. logic and math and rational thought). This immediately puts philosophy over the humanities, as the humanities devoid of science and philosophy is simply irrationalism (i.e. BS artistry).
Why should we simplify the matter? Especially when the matter is not in fact simple? The point of my post was that science and philosophy are not radically different and separate, so a simplification that makes them radically different is pretty obviously not what I’m suggesting.
Hamidreza, it is not a tautology. Empiricism is a school of thought in philosophy which begins with Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Mill. Sure, you find applications of empiricist canons in scientific method(s) (method here in the wide, European sense), and hence in science. But you also find rationalist ones (i.e., posits of nativism).
Your ontological and epistemic presuppositions affect the kinds of inferences you’ll be able to make with your data. And within a certain range, epistemology admits of different starting points that are of equal usefulness, and which are underdetermined by present evidence. So long as you have this (and are all the while keeping your ear to the ground of what actual scientists are up to), you can’t distinguish science and philosophy in any useful way except as abstract idealisations.