ask a question

recent responses

all topics

info

⚲

Ethics
Philosophy
Religion

I suggested to a friend that atheists and theists were rather similar, in that they take a position on god's existence ahead of time and argue it dogmatically, whereas philosophers are willing to evaluate the arguments and to tentatively adopt the one that they prefer for whatever reason. It's not to say that philosophers can't have a deep faith in a god or a lack thereof, but they don't see their work as defending that belief in the face of any possible objection. But if this is true, and I think it is, how about someone who refuses to budge from what seem like moral truisms? Must a philosopher, in order to maintain integrity, put every principle on the chopping block: that if it's wrong for you to do something, all else equal, it's wrong for me to do it, or that causing people pain is wrong? Must a philosopher at least be open to the possibility that these notions are fundamentally flawed?

We should distinguish one's views about a given topic and how one holds them. Theism and atheism are rival views about the existence of God or gods. One can hold either view dogmatically or in an open-minded way. So neither theists nor atheists, as such, need be dogmatic. Typically, being open-minded is linked with a recognition of one's own fallibility -- the possibility of being mistaken. Recognition of fallibility does not requires suspending belief. But it does mean accepting beliefs defeasibly and being prepared to revise one's beliefs in light of undermining evidence. Being a fallibilist means being willing to question one's beliefs. While one might be willing and able to question any given belief, it's probably not possible to questions all of one's beliefs simultaneously. One must rely on some beliefs, albeit defeasibly, while questioning other beliefs. To borrow a metaphor from Otto Neurath and popularized by Quine, as believers we are like sailors on a ship at sea who must overhaul the...
Philosophy

Do you ever find the questions of philosophy to be mundane and rather inconsequential to our lives, not just in the daily sense but in totality? What about poverty, inequality, war, and our individual responsibility in these areas? Isn't there so much to learn, and if so, why are we philosophers instead asking about the finer details of whether a hypothetical barber of a hypothetical village shaves the hypothetical beard of hypothetical men??

A couple of points. First, your worry about the irrelevance or unimportance of philosophy applies differently to different areas of philosophy. There are many kinds of philosophical issues. Many ethical issues -- for instance, the sort of issues about poverty, inequality, war, and individual responsibility to which you allude -- are or raise philosophical issues. Of course, redressing poverty and inequality or preventing or protesting war are different from thinking about conceptual issues at stake in these issues or debates about them. Nonetheless clear thinking about these issues can be relevant to redressing them successfully. So at least parts of philosophy address the sorts of moral and political issues you care about. So, second, we might turn to those parts of philosophy that concern more recondite issues about metaphysics and epistemology (broadly understood) that seem to have a less direct bearing on the sorts of moral and political issues that concern you. Of course, thinking about...