Philosophy is a Bunch of Empty Ideas

http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/06/philosophy-is-a-bunch-of-empty-ideas-interview-with-peter-unger.html

by conistonwater • 12 years ago

5 5 12 years ago

ttctciyf2• 12 years ago

Interesting read, thanks. I do wonder about his characterisation of Philosophical Investigations: he seems to be saying it's only good for showing philosophy students that philosophical ideas are duff, whereas I think it has more value in showing that ideas most people carry around in the back of their heads (like: "there is such a thing as the meaning of a word") are duff, and maybe working towards disinfection of the collective psyche in that regard. Also, it's not quite as out-of-kilter with the Tractatus as implied. The Tractatus itself was aimed at ruling a lot of metaphysical theorising as out-of-court. Philosophical Investigations does revise the approach substantially, but shares some of the goals of the earlier work.

Maybe the most enjoyable thing, though, was the complete lack of any false modesty on the part of the interviewee:

I can do psychology [...] far better than the best psychologist like Daniel Kahneman, who hasn’t been trained up in philosophy. It may be because I’m smarter than him. But there’s probably more to it than just that.

masswerk2• 12 years ago

In fact, Unger is mixing up various positions of Wittgenstein over several decades. Usually, Wittgenstein is treated as two authors, numbered Wittgenstein I (the author of the tractatus logico-philosophicus) and Wittgenstein II (the author of the Investigations and beyond). Now, the position of rather teaching, was Wittgenstein's position after he thought of having ruled out any questions that would matter to be answered by philosophy (in the tractatus). The Investigations are quite opposed to the project of the tractatus, starting to investigate the production of meaning by language as a social process, dismissing most of the notions of the tractatus. (In other words: While the tractatus was using meaning for asking, if any traces of "the mystic", the spiritual meaning of the world, were to be derived by logic – short answer: No –, the Investigations have an all together other topic, how meaning itself would be derived, contesting the very basis of the tractatus.)

And on metaphysics in general: We have learned so much more from Kant than, say, Da Vinci; what would Unger have to say on engineering? If philosophy isn't about easy answers, it isn't about easy questions, too ...

P.S.: I may be biased, since I've a degree in the field. Yes, there's much crappy philosophy, esp. in the 19th century. But then, there's much crappy software, too. Should we give up programming, just because MS failed again?

ttctciyf2• 12 years ago

I wouldn't agree that

The Investigations are quite opposed to the project of the tractatus

quite so straightforwardly; both are to some extent interested in describing the limits of what can be said objectively, and in constructing arguments that place some (including a lot of philosophical) speech outside that boundary. I do agree that the stance taken by the Tractatus is undermined by the deeper problematic exposed by PI, of course, I'm just saying there is commonality in the intent.

I don't think it's realistic to evaluate philosophy in terms of its production of positive "philosophical truth", btw. From my point of view most of its value is in exposing incorrect assumptions.

eli_gottlieb• 12 years ago

I only partially agree. I think that pure philosophy is essentially "empty ideas", but impure philosophy, philosophy as done in strict relation to specific and detailed domain knowledge, is very useful.

So, for instance, metaphysics would be "the philosophical portion of theoretical physics", useful for pointing physics in new directions but ultimately reliant on actual data to constrain its imagination.

Philosophy is a Bunch of Empty Ideas

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