Topics Philosophy

Question Don't you agree that real philosophy has ended? (Heidegger) What you guys practice is conceptual hairsplitting and prostitution to successful sciences that DO have an object of research and a genuine method. What is the object of philosophy and what is its method? Do you really believe that philosophy is some kind of science? Where are its results and how does it progress? Don't you think philosophy is useless, except as a feel-good sense-giving practice, without real sense of itself? Philosophy is more akin to art than to science, because both are incapable of giving sense to life, whereas science and technology shape our lives and direct us towards oblivion. There will never be a philosophy to stop that... Sorry to disturb your dreams!

Accepted:
October 13, 2009

Comments

You didn't disturb my dreams at all. But what you've offered up is a fair bit of bald assertion and rhetorical questioning that doesn't exactly move me to offer detailed comments. There is no one object of philosophy, and there is no one method. I don't believe that philosophy is a science (nor do I know any philosophers who do), but I also don't believe that it's an entirely different kind of beast. The idea that philosophy is a feel-good activity would seem pretty funny to most philosophers. We're an argumentative lot who spend a good deal of time beating our heads against hard arguments. As for "giving sense to life," whether philosophy or art is up to that task, there's a difference between "shaping" our lives and giving sense to them. (I'll set aside the rhetoric about science and oblivion.)

Some philosophy is indeed excessively hair splitting, though some unruly and overgrown hairs really do need a trim. What the vague accusation of "prostitution to successful science" is supposed to amount to escapes me, but it doesn't seem like a promising description of the serious work I know in philosophy of science. What you've written reads more like a rant (I've been known to rant myself) rather than a serious inquiry. So my suggestion: pose a question that's less rhetorical and more concrete. Offer, if you like, an example of something that seems to you to represent the ills of the discipline. That opens up the possibility of a more fruitful exchange.