Question In one hundred years, will an accomplished philosopher also have to be an accomplished neurologist, or does the subject have something to say independent of advances in brain science (posed another way, if we become ultra intelligent humans/machines with thinking capacities far in excess of our current brain, will we still partake in philosophy)?

Accepted:
June 29, 2010

Comments

I suggest that no matter how developed our brain sciences become, we will still have philosophy because the sciences themselves rest on philosophy, a scientific worldview. Without a concept of ourselves, causation and explanation, concepts of observation, and so on, we would not have any science. As for whether philosophers will have to be accomplished neurologists, I think that those philosophers working on human nature will at least need to have a general understanding of the methods and findings of the brain sciences and the general state of play in physics, chemistry, biology and psychology, but not to the point of actually being a scientist in any one of these domains. There are many issues that cannot be settled within the brain sciences themselves, including the nature of thought, emotion, desire, sensation, and so on. I suggest that whether or not machines can think or that human thinking is identical with brain processes is a philosophical matter that cannot be determined scientifically.