Topics Philosophers

Question What do you philosophers think of when non-philosophers step into your turf? Are "pop-philosophers" (for lack of a better term, I don't see the "man on the street" going hooplah over what Putnam or Kripke says) worth reading or do they have any good philosophical value at all? What do you philosophers think of Dawkins commenting on God which I believe is your turf? What do you philosophers think of when Stephen Hawking says that philosophy is dead?

Accepted:
January 4, 2011

Comments

I'll speak for myself, but I think there are lots of other philosophers who would agree.

For me it's not a matter of turf. There are people who weren't trained as philosophers but who have made serious contributions to philosophy. To take but one example, I have a colleague whose formal training was entirely in physics -- all the way to the PhD level. But he's an excellent philosopher.

Philosophers would need to be very careful about laying claim to any stretch of intellectual territory -- not least because so much of contemporary philosophy is "Philosophy of X," where X is some discipline like physics or psychology. Richard Dawkins has as much business talking about religion as I do; I just wish he'd do it a bit less ham-fistedly. And while I have enormous respect for Hawking as a physicist, he simply hasn't done his homework when he makes pronouncements about the death of philosophy; he appears to have very little idea what sophisticated philosophers actually have to say.

So I'm happy to have anyone doing philosophy. I'd just like them to do it well.

I also don't think of philosophy as turf - nor do I think that teaching philosophy or studying philosophy necessarily makes you a lover and possessor of wisdom. I also find it irksome when some in the field act as though philosophy profs are the ones who have access to the so-called deeper issues in specific issues- as though philosophers could explain to an Einstein what he really meant.