Topics Philosophy

Question If there IS philosophical progress, is it worthwhile to read philosophy that was written before you were born? Isn't the most current understanding of philosophy the most valid? For example, we now know Newtonian physics is false at the quantum level; wouldn't it stand to reason that after two hundred years Kant's moral philosophy has been refined or superceded and should not be followed in its entirety? If there is NOT any philosophical progress and philosophical questions are inherently unresolvable, then is the entire field of philosophy futile? If philosophers can't even agree on what the aims of philosophy are, then does that mean Marx's philosophy is as equally valid for people to follow as that of Aristotle's?

Accepted:
April 18, 2013

Comments

The question of whether philosophy progress - and, if it does, what sort of progress this might be - is itself a philosophical question, and there are at least two good answers to it.

The first is that there is a rather straightforward sense in which philosophy does progress: namely that bad arguments are weeded out and new ideas and arguments and ways of thinking are added - and this is the sort of progress that we see in science and other disciplines, too.

The second answer is that philosophy progresses in the sense that it continues to fulfil one of its central: to enable critical reflection on the ideas and activities and concerns that shape and guide human life - helping us to articulate contemporary worries, say, or to identify alternatives to current ways of thinking that, for whatever reason, are no longer fit for purpose. This is a different sense of progress, but there's no reason to insist that philosophy must use the same conception of progress as science!

Wittgenstein once said that philosophy fulfils its purpose when it resolves our intellectual tensions and relieves our 'mental cramps' - a sort of therapy or medicine - and this captures rather well this second sense of progress.

I agree with Ian for similar reasons (see my Unsolvable Problems and Philosophical Progress)

So, because we both agree that there is philosophical progress, is it worthwhile to read philosophy that was written before you were born?

Yes, for at least two reasons: First, of course, some of that philosophy might consist of good reasoning that has not been improved upon. Saying that philosophy progresses doesn't mean that old philosophy is "wrong" in any way (any more than saying that science progresses doesn't mean that old science is "wrong").

Second, philosophy is best thought of as a conversation that has been going on for at least 2500 years. One of the best ways of joining that conversation is to read "transcripts" of its earlier stages.