Topics Philosophy

Question Many philosophers say that philosophy is neither an art nor a science yet philosophy departments are usually in Arts Faculties at universities. How do you feel about this and do you think philosophy should be its own faculty? Are there any contemporary neo-logical positivists who think it should be classified as a science?

Accepted:
April 4, 2014

Comments

Many philosophers would love to have their own "faculty" or "school" or "college" within a university administrative structure, if only because then the "chair" of their department would become a "dean" who has more power over the purse strings than a mere "chair" :-)

More seriously, the location of a philosophy department in a college or university is typically more of a political than a (if you will excuse the expression) philosophical decision. At my university (State University of New York at Buffalo), philosophy used to be in a Faculty of Social Sciences (so, depending on whether you think that social sciences are sciences or not, there's an example that appears to classify philosophy as a science), but, as I understand it, that was for political reasons: the then-new Faculty of Social Sciences was perceived to have more political or financial clout than the Faculty of Arts and Letters. It is now in a College of Arts and Sciences, so it's unclear how our administrators think of it.

On the more philosophical side, certainly there are philosophers who feel more at home with literary scholars and there are philosophers who feel more at home with scientists. I know of no universities that prevent philosophers from doing research or scholarly work (must less associating) with people in other disciplines. Again at my university, many philosophers are doing research (on ontology!) with medical researchers in our medical school.