Topics Philosophers

Question Why do you think philosophers act like they are qualified to answer questions about physics, psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience when they have studied none of these?

Accepted:
September 30, 2010

Comments

Philosophy has cast itself in the role of the 'queen of the sciences' which stands apart from all special fields of inquiry and yet pronounces on them, and at certain times in the history of philosophy, philosophers have made 'armchair' pronouncements about particular disciplines of which they had little knowledge. Historically, however, philosophers have been engaged with the culture--science, arts and letters, etc.--of their day, and I think that philosophers are now coming more and more to recognize the importance of engaging with the work of particular disciplines if one is to do good philosophical work on those topics derived from those disciplines. (Thus, for example, when I answer questions on this site, I either answer questions that have to do with topics about which I already know something--or think I know something--even if what I know is only about the history of philosophical treatments of the topic, or about which I can learn something before I answer the question.)

Just to add to Prof. Greenberg's response, the question suggests that philosophers regularly make claims about physics, psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, and other sciences without studying those fields. That is false. Few philosophers do so. Many who write about the sciences or use information from the sciences in their philosophy have formal training (coursework and sometimes degrees) in these fields. Many more read widely in these fields, and given their education, are able to understand what they read well enough to make claims about the philosophical implications of the science and even raise theoretical concerns about the methodology or results of the science. Some philosophers practice science by running experiments with scientists. I'd venture to say that more often you see scientists without much training in philosophy make claims about the philosophical implications of their scientific research.

Question Why do you think philosophers act like they are qualified to answer questions about physics, psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience when they have studied none of these? Accepted:September 30, 2010

Question Why do you think philosophers act like they are qualified to answer questions about physics, psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience when they have studied none of these?

Accepted:
September 30, 2010