Re: Other schools of science

[zinov@xxxxxxxxxx]

> I found this interesting list of the top 50 greatest mathematicians of
> all time: https://www.sapaviva.com/the-50-greatest-mathematicians/
>
> There's British, French, German mathematicians; there's Ancient Greek,
> Chinese, and Arab; even a Japanese mathematician.
>
> But not one single American, and not a single Roman from Italy.
>
> Both of those societies, America and Rome, had the most free institutions.
> Many of the other societies (like France and Germany and Ancient China) had
> absolute monarchies.
>
> Since mathematics is the science most similar to philosophy, this is
> convincing proof that liberty has no correlation with philosophy.

There are two distinct questions here when one talks about whether liberty has
a correlation to philosophy. We could ask whether increased liberty leads to
more philosophy, and also whether philosophical work leads to increased
liberty. The founding principles of the United States are inspired by the work
of philosophers. You have done nothing to undermine the claim that
philosophical work can lead to political or social improvements, even if you
have shown that free societies are no more likely to produce good philosophy.

As for the question of whether liberty leads to more philosophy, I do not see
why it should, except in the sense that liberty guarantees a lack of certain
hindrances to philosophy. But in any case, your evidence of a lack for a
correlation between liberty and philosophy is quite weak.

Comparing one or two free societies with all societies throughout history is
not a fair comparison. The United States has not been around that long, and is
only a single society. I have a hard time believing that ancient Rome was
especially free compared to modern Western societies.

John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell, and G. E. Moore are some examples of
important British philosophers from the 19th and 20th centuries. Presumably,
19th and 20th century Britain was quite free relative to historical standards.

Some of the most influential philosophers from the 20th century are even
American. For example, Saul Kripke, David Lewis, Thomas Kuhn, John Rawls, and
Robert Nozick.

There was a lot more low-hanging fruit in ancient times, so we cannot expect
the same significance from more recent work. Of course, this disadvantages
relatively free societies, since they are more recent.

It seems reasonable to suppose that a society with freedom of speech will,
other things being equal, have greater philosophical achievements than one
that greatly restricts discussion of philosophical topics. However, there is
no reason to suppose that the mere liberty to do philosophy will lead to
significant philosophical work. If a society is free and wealthy, philosophy
will not be hindered, but philosophical work might fail to happen due to lack
of interest. There might be some cultural differences from the US compared to
ancient Greece that leads to less interest in philosophy (I do not know if
this is true), but that is not the fault of liberty.

Unlike philosophy, where freedom of speech is important, this is much less so
in the case of mathematics, so there is even less of a reason to expect much
of a correlation here. Of course, mathematical work probably does have some
correlation with wealth.

(By the way, I was unable to view the page you linked to. It requires
JavaScript.)