I don't know to what extent any philosophers or philosophical positions are mispresented outside of academia. However, throughout academia, both in philosophy and in other disciplines, 'Cartesian' and its cognates have become somewhat dirty words, implying a completely 'unhuman' separation of mind and body, a commitment to an absurd notion of the transparency of the mind, a downgrading of the body in favor of the mind, a sharp separation between reason and the passions or emotions, and other errors. Consideration of the historical Descartes, however, reveals that he is not guilty of certain of the errors that are imputed to him, or that his purported errors, when set in the broader context of his own overarching philosophical aims and projects, are less absurd than they might seem when taken out of context. One reason that this sort of misrepresentation may take place is that the historical Descartes, the 'founder of modern philosophy', is seen as a father who has to be slain in order for...

"The only way we can ever get rid of philosophy," the great philosopher J. L. Austin wrote in "Ifs and Cans," is "by kicking it upstairs." In 'kicking a philosophical question upstairs'--which Austin takes to be an improvement on treating the question philosophically--a putatively philosophical question is revealed to belong to another branch of knowledge. There are numerous examples. Although there was considerable speculation in ancient, medieval, and early modern philosophy about the nature of the physical elements, that issue is no longer debated; similarly, although there were debates about embryology from antiquity through the modern period, the way the fetus is formed is no longer a topic of philosophical discussion. In these cases, however, empirical questions have been split off from more properly philosophical, or conceptual issues--and there are, of course, philosophical issues that arise in connection with cosmology and embryology. I myself am inclined never to pronounce a philosophical...

The question needs to be clarified a bit, I think. Philosophy is taught in high school in certain countries: for example, in France, in the last year of high school, ' terminale ', all students studied philosophy; in the US, philosophy courses are taught in some high schools, largely private schools; however, it does seem to be the case that philosophy courses are not regularly taught in American secondary schools. I agree that the skills taught in philosophy courses--careful reading, clear prose, the construction of arguments--would be beneficial for all students, for they are highly 'portable' and are used in all walks of life. I am inclined to think that one reason that philosophy courses are not generally taught in high schools--at least today--is due to the tests to which schools must teach; another reason that philosophy may not be taught in high schools is that there generally aren't qualified teachers of philosophy working at the secondary level. (Here the contrast with France is...

One can distinguish between cleverness and depth. A 'clever' philosophical argument may be facile and initially impressive, but upon its examination, its flash may pass and the initially attractive argument may turn out not to be so attractive after all; by contrast, a 'deep' philosophical argument or position may not initially impress, but will reward repeated and sustained reflection. (I believe that some ancient philosopher or another--I'm no specialist in ancient philosophy--somewhere draws something like this distinction, and opts for depth over cleverness: rightly, to my mind.)

While there is progress in philosophy, what counts as philosophical progress is, I think, very different from what counts as progress in math and the sciences. There is no need for working mathematicians and scientists to know the history of their fields in order to contribute to 'state of the art' research, for most branches of most of the natural sciences build on theories that have been empirically confirmed, and mathematics builds on proofs known to be true, and so the present of these fields is what is most important to the researcher who wishes to contribute to ongoing work in those fields. Because, in contrast, philosophy consists in advancing arguments in favor of theses that cannot be resolved by appeal to facts or known with certainty, the history of philosophy is part of its present in a way that the history of (most of) the natural sciences and of mathematics is not part of their present. Not only is there a standing possibility in philosophy that some repressed historical view might go ...

I don't think that there is any need to justify one's ethical or moral beliefs: religion, for example, is a traditional source of the moral commitments of many people, but religion differs considerably from philosophy in that philosophy seeks, unlike religion, to give reasons for certain beliefs or commitments. Consider some moral precept advanced, for example, in the New Testament; the principle in question may well be true, but no justification is given for it in the New Testament; a philosophically inclined believer might, by contrast, seek to provide some rational justification for the principle. And this is a distinctively philosophical contribution to our lives. As Alex George, the creator of this website, writes in the Preface to the second volume of questions derived from this site, What Should I Do? Philosophers on the Good, the Bad, and the Puzzling : "The goal of acting ethically is quite elusive....Philosophy can be of some value here. Philosophers, after all, have been in the...

It's not altogether clear to me that it is correct to draw such a sharp distinction between philosophical and religious questions: for one thing, certain philosophers, like Augustine, Anselm, Bonaventure, and others deny that such a distinction may be drawn; for another thing, depending on what's at stake in appealing, say, to Jesus, one may invoke Jesus while giving a 'purely' philosophical answer to a question. For example, consider the following question treated by the early modern philosopher Nicolas Malebranche (I simplify somewhat to focus the issue as sharply as possible): Why does a completely self-sufficient God create the finite world? Malebranche's answer is that God creates the world in order to incarnate Jesus Christ, on the grounds that only if an infinite being is joined to the finite world will the world merit being created by God. Malebranche appeals to Jesus in this context in order to provide a sufficient reason for God's creation of the world--a sufficient reason, I should note,...

The question isn't silly at all--I think it turns on two distinct senses of 'opinion'. In one sense, an opinion--like a belief--is a mental state, a fact about the person who holds it, that doesn't admit of justification, although one could of course explain why the person has come to hold the particular opinion, how they have come to be in that particular mental state; there is, however, another sense of 'opinion', according to which opinions, like beliefs, are held for reasons and therefore admit of justification. Insofar as one treats an opinion, or a belief, as a mere fact about a person, it doesn't admit of argument, anymore than the fact of someone's height admits of argument; insofar, however, as one treats an opinion, or a belief, as a claim held for reasons--instead of merely as a state of a person, or of a person's mind--then it does admit of argument. In the first sense of 'opinion', I think it's quite right that one can't argue with opinions; in the second sense, however, I think not only...

It has been noted--for example, by Thomas Nagel, in the preface to his collection of reviews, Other Minds --that many professional philosophers tend to have been interested in math or theoretical physics before turning to philosophy. However, I myself don't think that there is a necessary connection between one's ability in math and one's suitability for philosophy. There are certain areas of philosophy--such as the philosophy of mathematics, or logic, or philosophy of language--in which mathemetical/logical ability is necessary, but there are others, such as the history of philosophy, ethics, and even epistemology, in which they aren't so necessary. (For what it's worth, I myself wasn't especially good at math in school.) I don't, however, know of any philosophy programs that require one to pass mathematics exams. Logic, by contrast, is important in philosophy, at least insofar as it forces a certain kind of rigor on one and leads one to be attentive to arguments, which are at the heart of...

This is a great question!! It would be wonderful if as many panelists as possible could respond, not only because I'm as curious as Jasper as to what people think, but also because I think that the responses would reveal much about the respondent's own philosophical temperament and priorities. (In this respect, the question is akin to the philosophical version of Desert Island Discs: which books would you bring to a desert island (excluding, of course, say, any collected works that fit into one volume, such as Plato's dialogues)?) Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals effectively ended centuries of philosophical approaches to morality and ever since its publication has been the subject of attacks and defenses. To this day, introductory ethics courses include consideration of the Groundwork --not bad for a book that Kant himself thought was merely a groundwork , a preliminary to a proper metaphysics of morals. (Kant of course not only wrote a metaphysics of morals; he also wrote a...