You can try reduce philosophy to science, but how can you justify the scientific method itself? To me, philosophy refers to the practice of asking any kind of “meta” question. To question the practice of science is philosophy, as is the practice of questioning philosophy. The arguments you make are philosophical arguments—and they are good arguments. But to make a statement to the effect of “all philosophy is cognitive science” is too broad a generalization.
What Socrates was doing was asking “meta” questions about intuitions that most people take for granted. Now what you are doing is asking “meta” questions about what Socrates was doing. Was his goal to study how people think about justice? Perhaps. But that is saying that Socrates’ goal was to find the truth. Perhaps his goal was more than that: he wanted to personally convince people to question their own intuitions via the “Socratic method.”
But this does not fit into the scientific framework. because in science it is accepted that there is a universal truth. From the scientific point of view, Socrates should just design some experiment to test peoples’ intuition about justice, publish the findings, and be satisfied that he uncovered some of this universal truth. But would that be enough to convince an average person to question their own intuitions? Perhaps in our age, it would be enough, since most people accept science. But I doubt it even now, and certainly people back in Socrates’ time would not be convinced if he wrote his findings, proclaiming it as universal truth. He had to seek out individuals and personally convince them to question their own thinking.
You can’t boil down philosophy to the process of “seeking universal truth”, because for one, that is the definition of science, and two, philosophy is the place you start before you assume things about the universal truth. Of course, philosophy can lead you to science, if philosophical arguments convince you about the existence of universal truth. Once you accept the “universal truth”, then looking back, most of philosophy looks like nonsense. But you shouldn’t discount the importance of the process of asking apparently silly questions that got you, and the rest of civilization, to where we are now!
You can try reduce philosophy to science, but how can you justify the scientific method itself?
By the fact that it works, where works defined as getting goals reached?
But you shouldn’t discount the importance of the process of asking apparently silly questions
I didn’t mean to discount or disparage philosophy by it, I meant to improve it. Once we know what philosophers are trying to learn, we can try to find better methods to achieve the same. Whether that would be called philosophy or cognitive science is beside the point: the point is it would deliver what philosophers want to get delivered.
To me, philosophy refers to the practice of asking any kind of “meta” question.
What kind of meta? “How to recruit recruiters who can recruit the kind of recruiters who can recruit the kind of recruiters who can recruit a lot of people?” is very meta, but not philosophical.
“What is music?” is philosophical. But it reduces to “By what algorithm does our subconscious hindbrain to find a sequences of sounds musical or not?”
The point is, once we know philosophy is largely looking for this kind of meta, we can try to propose more efficient methods for finding them.
But this does not fit into the scientific framework. because in science it is accepted that there is a universal truth. From the scientific point of view, Socrates should just design some experiment to test peoples’ intuition about justice, publish the findings, and be satisfied that he uncovered some of this universal truth.
But he was doing precisely that, consider the example of the guy with the borrowed sword. He designed thought experiments to test people’s intuitions about justice. To be more precisely, to test people’s intuitive proposals for an algorithm of justice against their intuitive judgements of examples which the algorithm was supposed to predict. He was looking for an algorithm that predicts intuitive judgements of examples, and tested all proposals. This is scientific enough. He was trying to arrive to a universal truth—could not find it, but science cannot always get a final answer at the first try. He managed to at least dispel some commonly proposed bad algorithms, such as justice is obedience to rulers, or paying debts, or similar ones, and proving some common ideas are misconceptions is an important part of the work of science.
Given that his experiments were not fully succesful at finding the final truth, of course it was not the universal truth yet, but going that direction by dispelling some myths.
To make it clear: it would be a truth about how, by what algorithms, does the brain arrive to these kinds of judgements.
You can’t boil down philosophy to the process of “seeking universal truth”, because for one, that is the definition of science, and two, philosophy is the place you start before you assume things about the universal truth. Of course, philosophy can lead you to science, if philosophical arguments convince you about the existence of universal truth.
It is all prediction, just aimed differently. Science is the kind of prediction that tomorrow there will be a lunar eclipse. Philosophy is the kind of prediction that if you take this algorithm and plug a situation into it, you will know how people will feel about it: they will find this act just or this sequence of sounds musical and so on.
Of course, so far philosophy is highly unsucessful at settling any question, only negatively (i.e. something is probably not true), but this is where I think it could be helped if we define it as the discipline for looking for the less-conscious algorithms in the human mind.
My larger point is that the most fundamental “what is” questions may relate to the world or the mind. And philosophy is the subset where they relate to the mind. What is music is philosophical, we are trying to find out what the mind is finding musical. What is an electron is scientific. But they overlap a lot.
The problem is that philosophical questions tend to presuppose existence. What is justice or what is music presupposes justice or music just exists like an object out there. If we understand they are questions about the mind we should rewrite them as what does the mind find just or what does the mind find musical.
Progress in philosophy was probably hampered by the “what is X?” type of formulation, instead of the “what and how our minds consider X?”
I meant to improve it. Once we know what philosophers are trying to learn, we can try to find better methods to achieve the same.
Is that a fact? What’s your track record?
By the fact that it works, where works defined as getting goals reached
If you could cash out the working thing in a rigorous way, you would be in to something. But the world has long been full of STEM types who can announce the two word version of “it works”....that does not change anything.
Of course, so far philosophy is highly unsucessful at settling any question, only negatively (i.e. something is probably not true), but this is where I think it could be helped if we define it as the discipline for looking for the less-conscious algorithms in the human mind.
But that is what psychology does,. Philosophers are interested in justice because they want just societies....they want improved versions of things.
You can try reduce philosophy to science, but how can you justify the scientific method itself? To me, philosophy refers to the practice of asking any kind of “meta” question. To question the practice of science is philosophy, as is the practice of questioning philosophy. The arguments you make are philosophical arguments—and they are good arguments. But to make a statement to the effect of “all philosophy is cognitive science” is too broad a generalization.
What Socrates was doing was asking “meta” questions about intuitions that most people take for granted. Now what you are doing is asking “meta” questions about what Socrates was doing. Was his goal to study how people think about justice? Perhaps. But that is saying that Socrates’ goal was to find the truth. Perhaps his goal was more than that: he wanted to personally convince people to question their own intuitions via the “Socratic method.”
But this does not fit into the scientific framework. because in science it is accepted that there is a universal truth. From the scientific point of view, Socrates should just design some experiment to test peoples’ intuition about justice, publish the findings, and be satisfied that he uncovered some of this universal truth. But would that be enough to convince an average person to question their own intuitions? Perhaps in our age, it would be enough, since most people accept science. But I doubt it even now, and certainly people back in Socrates’ time would not be convinced if he wrote his findings, proclaiming it as universal truth. He had to seek out individuals and personally convince them to question their own thinking.
You can’t boil down philosophy to the process of “seeking universal truth”, because for one, that is the definition of science, and two, philosophy is the place you start before you assume things about the universal truth. Of course, philosophy can lead you to science, if philosophical arguments convince you about the existence of universal truth. Once you accept the “universal truth”, then looking back, most of philosophy looks like nonsense. But you shouldn’t discount the importance of the process of asking apparently silly questions that got you, and the rest of civilization, to where we are now!
By the fact that it works, where works defined as getting goals reached?
I didn’t mean to discount or disparage philosophy by it, I meant to improve it. Once we know what philosophers are trying to learn, we can try to find better methods to achieve the same. Whether that would be called philosophy or cognitive science is beside the point: the point is it would deliver what philosophers want to get delivered.
What kind of meta? “How to recruit recruiters who can recruit the kind of recruiters who can recruit the kind of recruiters who can recruit a lot of people?” is very meta, but not philosophical.
“What is music?” is philosophical. But it reduces to “By what algorithm does our subconscious hindbrain to find a sequences of sounds musical or not?”
The point is, once we know philosophy is largely looking for this kind of meta, we can try to propose more efficient methods for finding them.
But he was doing precisely that, consider the example of the guy with the borrowed sword. He designed thought experiments to test people’s intuitions about justice. To be more precisely, to test people’s intuitive proposals for an algorithm of justice against their intuitive judgements of examples which the algorithm was supposed to predict. He was looking for an algorithm that predicts intuitive judgements of examples, and tested all proposals. This is scientific enough. He was trying to arrive to a universal truth—could not find it, but science cannot always get a final answer at the first try. He managed to at least dispel some commonly proposed bad algorithms, such as justice is obedience to rulers, or paying debts, or similar ones, and proving some common ideas are misconceptions is an important part of the work of science.
Given that his experiments were not fully succesful at finding the final truth, of course it was not the universal truth yet, but going that direction by dispelling some myths.
To make it clear: it would be a truth about how, by what algorithms, does the brain arrive to these kinds of judgements.
It is all prediction, just aimed differently. Science is the kind of prediction that tomorrow there will be a lunar eclipse. Philosophy is the kind of prediction that if you take this algorithm and plug a situation into it, you will know how people will feel about it: they will find this act just or this sequence of sounds musical and so on.
Of course, so far philosophy is highly unsucessful at settling any question, only negatively (i.e. something is probably not true), but this is where I think it could be helped if we define it as the discipline for looking for the less-conscious algorithms in the human mind.
My larger point is that the most fundamental “what is” questions may relate to the world or the mind. And philosophy is the subset where they relate to the mind. What is music is philosophical, we are trying to find out what the mind is finding musical. What is an electron is scientific. But they overlap a lot.
The problem is that philosophical questions tend to presuppose existence. What is justice or what is music presupposes justice or music just exists like an object out there. If we understand they are questions about the mind we should rewrite them as what does the mind find just or what does the mind find musical.
Progress in philosophy was probably hampered by the “what is X?” type of formulation, instead of the “what and how our minds consider X?”
Is that a fact? What’s your track record?
If you could cash out the working thing in a rigorous way, you would be in to something. But the world has long been full of STEM types who can announce the two word version of “it works”....that does not change anything.
But that is what psychology does,. Philosophers are interested in justice because they want just societies....they want improved versions of things.
We, not me.
That is step 2. Once we get an algorithm that reliably predicts our feelings about justice, we can codify it into law.
“Your” can be plural.
Once we understand the principles behind things, we may accept contradictions to our feelings.
By the same account appeal to the stick would be okay if it got you what you wanted. Yet violence seems epistemologically very suspect.