(ii) Can Any Philosophical Question Be Answered With Certainty? (iii) Panpsychism: Mysticism, Anti-Science… and Politics (iv) Scientific Experts and Academics as a Priest Class (v) Bigging-Up Peer-Reviewers (or Referees) (vi) Scientists, Not Just Politicians & Activists, Abuse Science (vii) Is There Too Much Analytic Philosophy?
Has the World Stopped Having Sex?
You can guarantee that the central claim of this Telegraph article is false. You can also guarantee that it doesn’t even deliver what its sexy title suggests.
And I’m not being pedantic here.
I don’t mean that it’s obviously false that “the world” has stopped having sex. I mean that the world doesn’t — or even can’t — have less sex…
Can Any Philosophical Question Be Answered With Certainty?
It would be weird — and even counterproductive to philosophy — for a philosophical question to be answered “with certainty”.
A mathematical or logical question could be answered in such a way. Perhaps even a factual question could be…
But a philosophical question?
What would make a philosophical answer certain?
What would a certain answer look like?
Would it be a long chain of true premises, followed by a logically-deduced conclusion?
Presumably, a philosophically certain answer couldn’t be a proof.
That’sbecause proofs don’t (really) exist outside logic and mathematics. (Even if philosophical reasoning sometimes includes mathematical and logical components.)
Psychologically, what would it mean to experience certainty about a particular answer?
And what if a person were psychologically certain about all the answers he assumes to be answers?
Of course, this simply shows us that psychological certainty is just that — a psychological matter. And that’s where proofs enter the picture — at least in logic and mathematics.
Panpsychism: Mysticism, Anti-Science… and Politics
I wouldn’t say that all panpsychists are “anti-scientific”. (I’m not saying this is Prof Alice Roberts’ view either.) That said, it’s sometimes hard to tell.
As Tim Crane (implicitly) says in the thread, panpsychism isn’t necessarily tied to “mysticism”. That may be true. The thing is that many panpsychists do tie panpsychism to mysticism… and to religion, spirituality and ethics. Indeed, Philip Goff even ties panpsychism to various politicalpositions. [See my ‘Professor Philip Goff’s (Panpsychist) Philosophy of Trees’. ]
Shorter
Glad to see the plural in the plural “scientific methods”, rather than the singular (platonic) “scientific Method”. That said, I’m not making some “relativist” or Feyerabendian point here. It’s just that there never was a single scientific method…
I’m not sure if there are many people who’re “against academia” and “mistrust experts”. Full stop.
The people I’m aware of are against particular aspects of academia. They’re also against particular academics and experts for doing (or not doing) particular things.
So let’s not conflate all these things.
Placing too much intellectual — and even political — power in the hands of narrow and specialised academics and platonic (scientific) Experts (“We is experts”) is to treat them as a priest class. And that “seriously harms society”…
Full stop.
Bigging-Up Peer-Reviewers (or Referees)
Wouldn’t it be the easiest thing in the world for a peer-reviewer to dress up his or her immediate political, philosophical or emotional distaste for a position (as advanced in a paper) with hoodwinking and deceitful academese? (Say, with a machinegun round of footnotes, jargon, etc. to tart up that simple emotional distaste.)
But there will be other peer-reviewers!
Sure, but they may well be the original the original peer-reviewer’s ideological or philosophical (in a manner of speaking) twin brothers.
Scientists, Not Just Politicians & Activists, Abuse Science
Scientists themselves can “abuse” science for political ends — not only politicians and political activists. There’s a mountain of evidence which shows that.
Also, if the philosopher agrees with the idea that science can be (or even must be) used for specific political or social ends, then he too may back up the original abusers of science — the scientists themselves.
Science can be a dirty political business. However, most of the time, it isn’t.
Is There Too Much Analytic Philosophy?
“The problem with analytic philosophy is the same as the problem with scholasticism: there’s far too much of it.”
The word “context” will be used in this essay a fair few times. It’s a catchall term for capturing the circumstances, social/psychological backgrounds, historical/social surroundings, etc. which give birth to the ideas and beliefs of philosophers and scientists.
However, what follows isn’t going to be sociological, psychological and/or historical in nature. Instead, it’s about the role of context when specifically dealing with the ideas, beliefs and theories of philosophers and scientists.
Ironically (or perhaps not), then, I’m going to be offering arguments (mainly aimed at analytic philosophers) as to why concentrating entirely on arguments may not always be the best — and only — approach when doing philosophy.
Introduction: The Contexts of Discovery
In philosophy, and perhaps generally, should we completely ignore the aetiologies and contexts of scientists' and philosophers’ beliefs, ideas and theories?
One reason it’s unwise to do so is that from the (as philosophers put it) context of discovery and beliefwecan gain a better understanding of the beliefs and ideas themselves. Thus, the contexts (whether psychological, historical, political, etc.) in these cases would only be a means to a philosophical end.
To put that another way. By learning about contexts, we may actually gain an insight into — and a better understanding of — philosophers’ and scientists’ beliefs and ideasthemselves.
(1) Focussing almost entirely on context (e.g., biography, etc.).
and
(2) Completely ignoring everything except for the actual arguments and ideas of individuals.
must be questioned.
Many (even most) analytic philosophers may well go too far in the direction of (2), whereas many other people go too far in the direction of (1).
Two Cases: Immanuel Kant and Philip Goff
I once wrote an essay onImmanuelKant in which I mentioned his priorPietistic Lutheranism.Indeed, in that same essay, I also mentionedthe English philosopherPhilip Goff and his prior politics.[See my‘Do the (Hidden) Motives of Philip Goff and Immanuel Kant Matter?’.] More concretely, I attempted to tie the prior non-philosophical beliefs, ideas and values of both Kant and Goff to their later philosophical ideas and theories. [See the many essays, papers and books on ‘Kant and Pietism’ here.]
However, in both cases, I didn’t rely exclusively on context. Indeed, context simplyserved what I took to be a philosophical and argumentative purpose.
More specifically, I used the words “ulterior motives” in the essay on Kant. And I happily acknowledged that I too had an ulterior motive for arguing that Kant had moral — and even religious - ulterior motives for advancing his own philosophies. Indeed, I quoted Kant (more or less) admitting that he had such an ulterior motive.
“[T]here can only be one ultimate end of all the operations of the mind. To this all other aims are subordinate, and nothing more than means for its attainment. This ultimate end is the destination of man. [] The superior position occupied by moral philosophy, above all other spheres.”
This is a long statement that “moral philosophy” should be — or actually is — First Philosophy. In other words, the quote above is an honest acknowledgement by Kant of his own moral — and perhaps religious - ulterior motive. [The mid-20th-century French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas explicitly stated that Ethics is — or at least it should be — First Philosophy. See here.]
Thus, Kant stated that “all the operations of the mind” (including all Kant’s own philosophising in metaphysics, epistemology, etc.) were nothing more than
“means for [the] attainment [of the] ultimate end [of] moral philosophy”.
There’s more — strictly philosophical — evidence of Kant’s religious and moral a priori when it came to his attempted destruction of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God.
In this precise technical case, Kant attempted to demonstrate that the word “‘exist’ is not a predicate”. And, by doing so, he believed that the support underneath the Ontological Argument had been taken away. This backed up Kant’s prior (Protestant) Pietism in that “faith” (not proof, evidence or argument) became the true source of his religious and moral beliefs.
Of course, I suspect that some readers won’t interpret Kant’s words as I’ve just done.
So what about Philip Goff?
Relevantly (or ironically) enough, Goff himself once warned other philosophers and scientists against “believing what they want to believe”.So that’s a good reason to quote a few passages from Goff himself (as found in the book Galileo’s Error):
“I agree on the benefit of panpsychism to eco-philosophy, and have in the past made similar arguments.”
“The terrible mass destruction of forests we witnessed in Brazil in recent years under Bolsonaro, have a different moral character if we see them as the burning of conscious organisms.”
“[Panpsychism] entails that there is, in a certain sense, life after death.”
To me at least, these passages speak for themselves.
[There are another ten passages — of a very similar kind — from Goff which can be read in note 1 at the end of this essay.]
So does anyone write anything at all without motives of some kind?
Too Much Context?
Perhaps, then, this may be an argument against even mentioning such a universal — thus, possibly banal — phenomenon. Wouldn’t it be like mentioning the fact that water is wet?
In any case, most people do mention (or simply note) context. Analytic philosophers, on the other hand, generally don’t mention or write about context. (At least that’s part of the self-image of many analytic philosophers.) However, they too must still think about such things.
Perhaps they wouldn’t deny this.
However, they would say that contexts are irrelevant tophilosophy itself.
Yet there are, of course, dangers to citing contexts.
Julian Baggini (who’ll be featured later in this essay) picked up on one example. He wrote:
“Have you never, in an immune system-like response, repelled a view that contradicts your own with a ‘they would say that’?”
Thus, if Philip Goff denied (or simply played down) all the contexts I’d highlighted, then all I’d need to say in response is: He would deny that. Wouldn’t he.
Of course, all Goff (or one of his supporters) needs to say back is: Paul Murphy would say that. Wouldn’t he.
More critically, my citations or examples of context may be false. They may be irrelevant. Or, in Baggini’s eyes, they may simply beunfalsifiable.
In any case, the main problem (at least in philosophy) is relying exclusively on contexts, and also drawing too much out of them. Indeed, this approach too can be taken to extremes… as we’ll now see.
The following is an extreme example of someone relying on context, biography and someone’s supposed psychology in order to escape from argument.
“Philippe Sollers asserts [] that our private lives ‘merit investigation’: ‘What do they like? What paintings do they have on their walls? What are their wives like? How are those beautiful abstract statements translated in their daily and sexual lives?’
Sokal and Bricmont continued:
“Well! Let’s concede once and for all that we are arrogant, mediocre, sexually frustrated scientists, ignorant in philosophy and enslaved by a scientistic ideology (neoconservative or hard-line Marxist, take your pick).
“But please tell us what this implies concerning the validity or invalidity of our arguments.”
What can you say to people like Philippe Sollers?
Well, Sokal and Bricmont themselves could have responded by stating the following:
I believe that Philippe Sollers’ private life merits investigation: What does he like? What paintings does he have on his walls? What is his wife like? How are Sollers’ psychoanalytic questions translated into his own daily and sexual life?
All this tangentially brings up the subjects of objectivity and bias.
The Objectivity of a Free Market Think Tank
There is a conundrum here, which the English philosopher Julian Bagginicaptures with his own specific example. He wrote:
“If a free market think tank reports that free markets are a good thing, we might at least question the objectivity of the research.”
“Nevertheless, that research should stand or fall on its own merits.”
So surely the context here can’t be irrelevant.
In any case, of course a “free market think tank” would report that “free markets are a good thing”. The clue, after all, is in the words “free market think tank”.
(It can be supposed that — in theory at least— there could be such a free market think tank whose job it was to criticise the free market, question its very existence, etc.)
In addition, what did Baggini mean by the word “objectivity”?
To state the obvious. A think tank which criticised this free market think tank wouldn’t be objective either. Similarly, if a free market think tank is by definition lacking in objectivity, then surely the person criticising that think tank is lacking in objectivity too.
What’s more, even if everything this free market think tank states is true, accurate, and evidence-based, its reports and research would still be selective and issue-led. Similarly, a critic of this think tank may also offer truthful, accurate, or evidence-based criticisms of this think tank. Yet he too will be selective and issue-led.
So would any think tank (or any person) be truly objective on this subject? Indeed, what does that word “objective” even mean in this specific context?…
Perhaps all this is precisely why Baggini concluded by saying that “research should stand or fall on its own merits”.
Abortion and Those Nazis Again!
The Nazis are often mentioned in order to place ideas and beliefs in some kind of (very negative) context. In extreme cases, this is — and it should be — classed as Godwin’s law.
“Godwin’s law, short for Godwin’s law (or rule) of Nazi analogies, is an Internet adage asserting: ‘As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”
“Reductio ad Hitlerum [] also known as playing the Nazi card, is an attempt to invalidate someone else’s argument on the basis that the same idea was promoted or practised by Adolf Hitler or the Nazi Party. Arguments can be termed reductio ad Hitlerum if they are fallacious (e.g., arguing that because Hitler abstained from eating meat or was against smoking, anyone else who does so is a Nazi). []”
Julian Baggini(again)picked up on this in the case of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor. He wrote:
“Given that Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor is a Roman Catholic, it comes as no surprise to find that he is against abortion. But it is still something of a shock to hear him compare the termination of foetal life with Nazi eugenics programmes, which he has done on several occasions. In the quote above he even evokes a comparison with the Holocaust with his reference to ‘6 million lives’.”
Two paragraphs later, Baggini concluded with the following words:
“The problem with guilt by association is that it fails to show what is actually wrong with the thing being criticized.”
Yet perhaps things aren’t so simple.
Is there really such a rigid line between using “guilt by association” (or providing some kind of context), and “show[ing] what is actually wrong with the thing being criticized”?
For a start, a Catholic (or even a non-Catholic) may say that Baggini himself was using guilt by association when he wrote the following words:
“Given that Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor is a Roman Catholic, it comes as no surprise to find that he is against abortion.”
Sure, a reader could now say:
But Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor was a Catholic! That’s just a fact.
So what about Baggini’s phrase “it comes as no surprise”?
Again, a reader could say:
Well, everyone knows that the Catholic Church is against abortion. So Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor’s position is indeed “no surprise”.
In any case and as already quoted, Baggini finished off bysaying that the
“problem with guilt by association is that it fails to show what is actually wrong with the thing being criticized”.
Yet Baggini himself associates being against abortion with the Catholic Church, and he also fails to show what’s actually wrong with being against abortion…
Well, that’s surely because the chapter these words are taken from isn’t actually about abortion.
That said, the Catholic Church too has provided mountains of (good and bad) reasons as to why it believes abortion is morally wrong. It just happens to be the case that in the example cited by Baggini, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor did indeed rely exclusively on guilt by association.
So clearly this is complicated.
For a start, there may be very good reasons to associate abortion with what the Nazis did. Yet there may also be very good reasons to reject those reasons. The problem still is, however, that (guilt by) association (or context generally) shouldn’t be exclusively relied on.
The Nazis Believed Things Which Are True
As we’ve seen, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor mentioned the Nazis. Many people do. Indeed, so too does Julian Baggini. However, Baggini did so in order to get his point across.
“The Nazis were very keen on ecology, forests, public rallies, compulsory gym classes and keep fit. [] Hitler too eschewed meat.”
Thus, those who’re against ecology, vegetarianism, etc. could mention the Nazis and/or Hitler. (In fact they often do!) However, Baggini continued:
“Nothing is bad or wrong simply because the hand of evil has touched it.”
Let’s look at this.
Most (even all) Nazis would have believed that 2 + 2equals4. That doesn’t thereby stop 2 + 2 equalling 4. And neither does it make the equation bad.
Yet even outside simple beliefs about arithmetic this logic may still apply.
Perhaps, then, it would be wise to come down somewhere in the middle on this issue.
We shouldn’t believe that if a somehow culpable person states P, then that makes P false — or at least probably false. And neither should we believe P is false — or simply suspect — simply because it was articulated by a person at a certain suspect point in history, or in a certain suspect environment.
Note:
(1) Here are the passages from Philip Goff, which can mainly be found in his book Galileo’s Error:
“My hope is that panpsychism can help humans once again to feel that they have a place in the universe. At home in the cosmos, we might begin to dream about — and perhaps make real — a better world.”
“Could our philosophical worldview be party responsible for inability to avert climate catastrophe?”
“The view of the mystics, in contrast, does provide a satisfying account of the objectivity of ethics… According to the testimony of mystics, it is this realization [“formless consciousness”] that results in the boundless compassion of the enlightened.”
“It is no surprise that in this worldview [“dualism” — Goff says almost identical things about “materialism” in these respects] the act of tree hugging is mocked as sentimental silliness. Why would anyone hug a mechanism?”
“Panpsychism has a potential to transform our relationship with natural world.
“[W]e now know that plants communicate, learn and remember. I can see no reason other than anthropic prejudice not to ascribe to them a conscious life of their own.”
“[I]t would be nice if reality as a whole was unified in a common purpose.”
“… if they were taught to walk through a forest in the knowledge that they are standing amidst a vibrant community: a buzzing, busy network of mutual support and care.”
“[] I also think that [panpsychism] is a theory of Reality somewhat more consonant with human happiness than rival views.”
“For a child raised in a panpsychist worldview, hugging a conscious tree could be a natural and normal as stroking a cat.”