The Value of Philosophy

[zinov@xxxxxxxxxx]

Philosophy is traditionally divided into metaphysics, epistemology, and
ethics. Philosophy generally uses intuition and rational argumentation instead
of empirical methods or dogma to examine these subjects.

To object to the value of philosophy, one must either object to the value of
the subject-matter or the methods.

One might think that some philosophy is of intrinsic value. If any sort of
intellectual activities have intrinsic value, it seems plausible that
examination of questions, for example, about the fundamental nature of reality
are some of the activities that are valuable. But even if one rejects this, a
lot of philosophy deals with questions of practical importance. Certainly some
questions about ethics and epistemology are important. These fields involve
practical questions, such as how one ought to act, or how we can gain
knowledge. Even metaphysical questions can have practical implications.
Questions about consciousness, for example, can have practical implications,
since whether a being is conscious might have implications and how we ought to
treat such a being; certain views of consciousness might rule out certain
beings as having consciousness. Some metaphysical questions are relevant to
philosophy of religion, which has practical significance. Even the problem of
universals, which might seem of purely theoretical interest, can have
implications for the nature of morality and our ability to have certain kinds
of knowledge.

Even if one accepts that philosophy deals with questions of importance, one
might think that its methods are flawed. There is disagreement among
philosophers about what sort of methods should be used, but philosophy
generally uses the methods of intuition and rational argumentation
(introspection is also used, and empirical claims are often relied on in
part).

Instead, perhaps one might think that we should only rely on scientific
methods or sense perception. But it is hard to see how we can then come to
conclusions about the sort of questions philosophy deals with. The sort of
facts philosophy deals with are not usually constituted by anything physical,
and so we cannot perceive them through the senses like we could facts, for
example, about particular animals or plants (philosophical questions might be
about the physical world in some way, but not in the sense of involving
physical particulars). We cannot see or hear or otherwise perceive by the
senses what sort of actions are right or wrong, for example. We cannot
perceive by the senses facts about what justifies beliefs or gives us
knowledge either. There is no way to determine by sense perception whether,
for example, idealism is correct. And in addition to not being the sort of
facts that can be perceived through the senses, many philosophical questions
make no empirical predictions that would allow us to use inference to the best
explanation, so we cannot use this method either.

Some people might rely on religion or other traditions for their ethical
beliefs (and perhaps also metaphysical or epistemological beliefs). But
besides the fact that this is not a reliable way to gain knowledge since the
tradition might be mistaken (and some must be; they cannot all be correct),
even if it was granted that some particular religion was correct, we still
must interpret the claims of the religion/tradition. For example, Jesus
teaches that one must 'turn the other cheek'. Some interpret this as a
prohibition on any sort of violence, even in self-defence. Others think that
this is ridiculous, and it does not include self-defence. It seems that one
must rely on non-dogmatic reasoning to determine how to interpret certain
teachings. To be fair, this might be less of a concern for hierarchical
religions such as Roman Catholicism, since living people can adjudicate such
disputes, but then one is relying on flawed humans who would themselves need
to rely on philosophy, unless they are considered to be prophets whose every
word is dictated by God.

But even if one accepts that philosophical questions are in principle
worthwhile, and empirical methods and tradition are insufficient for examining
them, one might question whether there is any good way of investigating them
at all. Of course, if one rejects the possibility of philosophy at all, then this
might also rule out religious knowledge due to the sort of concerns raised
above. Even in the case of science, one might reject certain alleged evidence
based on methodological concerns (one might reject some things as
_pseudoscience_), and questions of methodology cannot be settled by science
itself. Of course, we are now doing philosophy, so if philosophical knowledge
is impossible, this whole discussion is pointless. One cannot claim to know
that philosophical knowledge is impossible, since this would itself be a case
of philosophical knowledge.

However, one might think that even if philosophy is possible and valuable in
principle, all previous philosophical work that has been done has been
worthless, and so there is no point in studying existing philosophy.

At the very least, however, it seems that philosophy has been able to have
successes in helping people avoid making mistakes by making people more clear
in their thinking.

For example, philosophers, going back to Plato (see _Protagoras_) have
distinguished between intrinsic value and extrinsic value. Some things are
valuable in themselves, others are valuable as a means to an end. If one fails
to make this distinction, people can make errors. For example, money might be
good to have as a means to an end, but not in itself. One would be wasting
one's life if one merely sought out more money but did not use it for anything
beneficial. This is clearly an important distinction to make.

Sometimes non-philosophers might argue for a position in a fallacious way that
a philosopher would be unlikely to do. While there is plenty of disagreement
about what sort of arguments are good -- and even disagreements about things
like whether an argument is question-begging -- in some cases, an argument
clearly fails to even be a valid deduction and would be rejected by any
competent philosopher.

A more recent advancement along these lines is possible world semantics, which
has helped philosophers think more clearly about possibility, necessity, and
impossibility.

It is clearly good to have the skills of being able to make appropriate
distinctions and to argue logically, or at least be able to recognise
arguments as failing to establish their conclusions.

Philosophy has also had more substantial successes. Philosophers have
discussed things like rule of law and natural law going back to Plato and
Aristotle. The importance of rule of law is widely accepted, and the concept
of natural law and the related concept of natural rights has had a significant
and positive impact on society. Philosophers have argued for the importance of
freedom of speech and other legal rights. _On Liberty_ is a good work of
political philosophy.

A more recent advancement in political philosophy is that of philosophical
anarchism. Past philosophers have generally accepted that there is political
authority -- that states (at least some) have legitimate authority that allows
them to make, perhaps within some limits, arbitrary rules that no one else has
the authority to enforce, and that people have an obligation to obey the
state. But many philosophers now reject this. See _The Problem of Political
Authority_ by Michael Huemer, which discusses this issue (it also defends
political anarchism, which is different from philosophical anarchism, and much
more controversial).

There are also significant arguments in applied ethics, such as Peter Singer's
argument from marginal cases, which argues by analogy to cases of humans such
as infants and the severely mentally retarded that we have similar obligations
to non-human animals.


Now, even if philosophy, both in principle and in terms of the actual practice
of philosophy, is worthwhile, there is a question about how to go about
studying it. Some would recommend a more historical approach than others.
While I tend to think that there is significant value in reading historical
works, there can be disadvantages, and I am not that confident in the best
approach. Sometimes older philosophers make serious mistakes that newer
philosophers would not make. It might be a good idea to start with some newer
material (whether books or lectures or podcasts) aimed at people unfamiliar
with philosophy to introduce someone to philosophy, as this can provide a
better overview and avoid some mistakes that might be rather obvious in
hindsight. If one looks only at historical works and without any sort of
guide, one will not have an overview of all of the different positions, and
will need to read through some parts that might be rather unimportant
(sometimes there are some parts of a work that might still be of significance,
while other parts might be completely outdated due to serious errors).

One should not judge philosophy based solely on older works, just as one would
not judge science based solely on older works. In the case of science, there
is need for empirical observation (and in some cases newer equipment has made
such observations easier), so philosophy does have an advantage over science
in terms of the ability of ancient people to engage in it, and it is also true
that old philosophy is often taken more seriously by contemporary philosophers
than old science would be by contemporary scientists; but people working off
the work of other people still have a significant advantage in the ability to
competently engage in philosophy, and contemporary philosophers are likely to
agree that sometimes historical philosophers made mistakes that newer ones
probably would not make.