[lit-ideas] Re: Meta-Philosophy
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 16:45:15 +0100 (BST)
The Poppn. view of this is roughly that both 'What is philosophy?' and 'What
is history?' are philosophical questions: this is because they are not
scientific but (according to P's demarcation criterion) metaphysical (which
simply means non-scientific). But they are also bad philosophical questions
insofar as they encourage the view that there is a natural or given
subject-matter - or essence - of philosophy or of history. Characterisations
of subject-matter are best viewed as proposals, for there are in truth not
really subject-matters as such only problems (subject-matters are an
invention of convenience for academic administrators) - that is, problems
typically cross the bounds of stipulated subject-matters.
P is also of the vi
--- Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
> Thanks to R. Paul for his commentary. He writes:
>
> There might be sociological or historical accounts of what philosophers do
>
> (such
> studies and accounts of what physicists do are fairly frequent), but
> neither
> could establish what philosophy _was_, for any such investigation would
> have
> to
> begin with an answer to the question 'What is philosophy?' in hand.
The same is true of science: for we cannot say what science is except by
taking an ultimately normative view of what makes something 'valuable' from a
certain perspective [in Pop's view it being testability-falsifiablity by
observation that underpins the character of science]. Mere description of
scientists cannot work because we would have to select who we should regard
as scientists (some might falsely claim the title) and select which of their
activities are science-related (their toilet habits might have no bearing on
whether or not they are scientists).
> No
> quasi-empirical investigation can investigate what philosophers do unless
> it
> can
> distinguish between philosophers rightly so-called and other sorts of
> people.
This is correct on Popper's view for the reasons given - but their is one
important proviso where in a sense we can pretend or seem to offer a
'quasi-empirical investigation' into who are philosophers or scientists: that
we try to calibrate our account of who is to be regarded as such eminent
persons with what seem to be the observable known facts as to who is
typically so regarded (that is we avoid an account that says the only true
philosphr. or scientist is in fact what we would ordinarily describe as a
ballerina or an architect). But this is an illusion in that even in this
case, where we try to callibrate our proposal with known or accepted facts,
the selection of which facts to count cannot be derived from the fact they
are known or accepted or from any other fact. The selection therefore has an
irreducible normative element even where it seems to fit as a description of
the facts and thus might appear merely descriptive or empirical.
An upshot of this is that no answer to the question who counts as a
philosopher or a scientist can itself be scientific, which is to say it must
be (in some sense) a philosophical question. Equally Popper's normative
proposals cannot be refuted by pointing to apparent facts, like famous
scientists who evaded falsification rather than embrace it, though some
philosophers - Putnam and Lakatos - have in effect tried to argue this. But
equally, seen aright, those normative proposals fit science like a glove -
which helps explain why Popper's views though not widely accepted by
philosophers are much more widely accepted by scientists (eg. Stephen
Hawking, Medawar, Eccles etc). That is, they agree with the norms that Popper
is opposing even though one might argue (wrongly) these norms are refuted by
actual scientific practice.
It seems to me there is no real need to view the philosophical discussion of
the character of philosophy as 'meta-philosophy' in any important sense,
anymore that such discussion of the character of science is in any important
sense 'meta-science': it is simply in each case philosophy, and
philosophising about one of the most important issues facing anyone
considering the subject - the demaraction of science from philosophy.
'Meta-philosophy' has a somewhat pretentious title.
Donal
England
>
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