Has Philosophy Lost its Way?
Massimo Pigliucci
Philosophers have a tendency to shoot themselves in the foot, they ought to stop.
Then my own rendition of this:
Those philosophers among us in particular who, in a free will world, actually do believe that just as we can grasp an objective reality in the either/or world, we can, in turn, accomplish this in the world of conflicting value judgements. Either theologically or philosophically. In fact, those such as Sam Harris...given his own, in my view, peculiar understanding of determinism...seem convinced that up to a point science can accomplish this in turn.
Moral philosophy and the scientific method?
We'll need context. Or, rather, I will.
One of the characteristics of philosophy as a field of inquiry is that — unique among human endeavors — it also inquiries upon itself.
In other words, philosophers must eventually get around to how and why the human condition itself fits into the existence of existence itself. Not counting those here who approach this question as well as though it was just a...trivial pursuit?
This was true since the times of Socrates and Epictetus, of course. Here is how the latter puts it in his Discourses:
“Now if you are writing to a friend, grammar will tell you that you need particular letters; but it will not tell you whether or not you should write to your friend. The same holds in the case of music’s relation to song. It will not say whether at this moment you should sing or play the lyre, or whether you should not do so. Which faculty, then, will do so? The one that studies both itself and everything else. And what is that? The faculty of reason. Yes; for this is the only faculty we have inherited that can perceive itself — what it is, what it is capable of, and how valuable it is — and also perceive all the rest.”
Again, given my own rendition of this, there is a world of difference for philosophers between establishing the fact that they play the lyre and establishing that in fact they are obligated to play it. That's akin to establishing that in fact classical music is better than jazz music is better than new wave music is better than blues music.
Let alone that music is objectively better than painting or sculpture or photography or performance art.
Then back to the gap between the objective knowledge able to be accumulated by those who perform abortions versus what I construe to be the personal opinions that ethicists can provide us in regard to the morality of abortion. Here, in my opinion, even the views of philosophers are rooted subjectively and subjunctively in dasein.
This was in the context of a discussion with his students of the nature of philosophy, the practice of which is of course entirely based on “the faculty of reason.”
Or, perhaps, the limitations of reason given the argument I make above?