Krimel said: Not to belabor the point but the role of natural philosophers for the past 2500 has been to carve out philosophical questions and provide ways of answering them. As a result they are no longer considered philosophical questions anymore. Philosophical speculation about mathematics fell to the Greeks. Philosophical speculation about physics fell to the Italians and English.
Matt: Right, the "every discipline broke off from the tree of philosophy" view. [Krimel] Except that I don't think broke off or new tree from old tree is quite right. It is branches growing on the same tree. When zoologist discover a platypus it doesn't get a new tree it sprouts as a new branch. Or when chemists decide to only concern themselves with atoms and molecules they aren't uprooting from physics, they are just a new branch looking for a different patch of sunlight. Matt: Sure, but taking the tree/new-tree approach to what philosophy's relationship is to other stuff, what kind of relevance is this "something" that is said? For instance, I'm sure we can draw various kinds of lines between gluons and the worldview that allowed gluons to happen (like the inferential connections I drew in my post to Ian about the publicity of moral reasoning), but that relevancy seems pretty remote from the gluons themselves. Because in this case, "gluons" is really just a variable-X, a placeholder for "insert scientific thingy here." [Krimel] I don't have very high or very specific expectations apparently. What I am looking for from philosophy is the smallest set of concepts that can help me make sense of the greatest amount of incoming data. Or maybe a better way of saying that is I want heuristics that have broad applicability. I am a generalist at heart, a jack of all trades and I look for ideas that let me shift modes with minimal grinding of gears. [Matt] If you first distinguish philosophy from other disciplines, then you cannot have an easy view of interdisciplinary impact (or "cross-pollinization"). [Krimel] But that is not the kind of distinction I see happening. I think physicist are still natural philosophers perusing philosophical problems that lend themselves to the techniques of physics. Philosophers in philosophy departments and such, are the folks left pursuing problems with no agreed upon methodology or at least not agreement on how to arrive at answers. Despite what I said earlier philosophy itself started as a branch of mathematics for example. Plato was simply applying mathematical techniques of proof and reason to other areas. Hume, Kant and pretty much everyone immediately after Newton were adapting philosophy to the newly invented methodology of classical physics. Cultural and moral relativism are philosophical responses to Einstein and Darwin. Postmodernism is response to Einstein and QM. [Matt] But what do think about this way of describing it: all other disciplines can offer the distinctive problems of philosophy are new kinds of metaphors. [Krimel] Yeah, see above. That's what I think was happening. But again I don't necessarily see any necessary discontinuity involved just branching and pruning. [Matt] A philosopher doesn't _need_ to take into account new metaphors--that would be like saying you have to take something seriously just because it was new. However, since philosophical articulation is based on the metaphors you start off from (like the mind as a mirror or Man Falling From Heaven), new metaphors will transform your philosophy. And, crossing back into philosophy from the newer discipline with new metaphors might, indeed, produce new disciplines. Philosophy is about mediating between the future and the past, on this view, but what we can't have is just an entire abandonment of old metaphors without good reason. [Krimel] And people have often found ways to dredge up old discarded ideas and breathe new life into them. I remember being in elementary school at the dawn of the "atomic age." We were taught that Democritus "discovered" atoms. Well yeah, but... [Matt] So with your illustration of the impact on Pirsig's cultural lens metaphor of new stuff, I--as a philosopher personally reflecting on his metaphors--can't really see it as a major alteration because the basic metaphor has stayed the same. What it does is update it to not be so static, but if you've already lodged complaints against the entire ocular metaphor itself, then it isn't clear what more is gained by going back to it. It's like being asked to go back to a geocentric view because you found a way of adding a hundred new epicycles so that your geocentrism matches better with the new heliocentrism. A heliocentrist will reply, "Well, that's nice, but the structural integrity of view is still the same and I still don't want to use it." [Krimel] I am not sure that I ever intentionally suggested a problem with ocular metaphors although I am told the French have. Be that as it may, my project has always been to connect as much stuff together as possible. You know there are two kinds of people lumpers and splitters. I'm a lumper. But if one has a special interest in splitting nothing I say is going to be interesting to them. Back to heuristics; if you are mathematician or a physicists or perhaps and analytical philosopher heuristics may seem like finger painting. Or perhaps if you are near sighted reading glasses won't help much. [Matt] Dewey didn't need computers to suggest we could be less static by getting rid of the spectator view of knowledge, though I'm not going to complain too much when people catch up in their own way. I don't think work being done on information theory and whatnot, particularly about feedback loops and self-reference (like Hofstadter, strange-loop junk) is SOMic, I just think that Dewey and pragmatism are waiting at the other end of it. And the example of Dewey is a good example of why I'm suggesting there isn't (nor should their be) direct impact between up-to-date science and up-to-date philosophy. Both got their own thing going, though curiosity about what other people are doing and cross-pollinization is sometimes an instrument of advance (just as it sometimes is in personal relations). [Krimel] I trust you on Dewey but I do think science does tend to heavily impact philosophy not only by adding rich new metaphors as you point out but by sharpening old ones. Regrinding the lens a bit if you will. Furthermore science can also rightfully demand abandoning or pruning of philosophical notions altogether. Galileo's attacks on Aristotle for example or Darwin's impact on large chunks of theology or more currently the impact of determinism without predictability on talk of free will and fate. To use your (Rorty's?) conversation and vocabulary metaphor surely there are often reasons to hold separate caucuses for purposes of precision within the various branches of knowledge but this does not mean there aren't good reasons to maintain and improve vocabularies that promote cross talk. When we find the kind of crosstalk that can provide connections from roots to stems that is what I would call metaphysics. [Matt] The general know-how of knowing when to take something seriously is an evolving currency, but knowing that there is a know-how there to be flexed is perhaps something we need better work at articulating. [Krimel] Yeah, but easier said than done. I have more than passing interest in philosophy but certainly not the passion for detail that you do. Likewise my interest in physics, theology, history, economics, rhetoric, anthropology, mathematics and computer science. If I have a "specialty" it is psychology at least until Fall term starts. But I have never been interested in sinking deep roots. I have pursued breathed over depth at every opportunity. That I suppose puts me "inside" lots of front doors but not inside many parlors and I hardly ever get invited into the bedroom. But like to think I has a pretty good idea of what sort of neighborhood I am in most of the time. [Matt] Not being interested myself, I can only hope that other people _are_ so culture won't miss out on something. I hope people are paying attention to both science and mysticism, so that somebody, when I look up from Howards End, can tell me some tidbits of what other people are doing. But I guess if you perceive a person as an enemy beforehand, you won't like anything they say. That's why I don't (try not to) view most people as enemies. I have political enemies and philosophical enemies (and soon literary ones), but they are actually quite small in scope, and they are only enemies in their disciplinary capacities, and knowing the scope helps you not take offense when someone tells you about a conference. But if you view the seeds of all evil (rather than a certain, limited scope of evil) as rooted in worldview, then you naturally perceive almost everyone else as an enemy, and so open for ridicule (as silly as it will make you seem). [Krimel] We don't talk often because I think our interests are so divergent. I am often disappointed with the venom in my own writing style but seem unable to detach from it. It doesn't help when people who don't seem to me possessed of either depth or breadth make dogmatic assertions or hold ignorance up as a virtue. I welcome thoughtful criticism but having said that I have to admit to having my own defensive streak that is miles wide. I recently tried to engage some of my high school classmates in a political discussion. After a bit of heat at the onset I tried to step back and direct the conversation to the differences between not what but how liberals think. You know compare worldviews. As it turned out one guy stated flatly that we should nuke Arab countries until one of them hands over a silver platter with Bin Laden's head on it, that we should abandon all rules of engagement in war, that the second amendment guarantees to right of citizens to possess any weapons that the military can possess, that the Army was illegal under the constitution, politicians should not be involved in telling generals how to conduct military operations, that nowhere in the constitution is there a provision for taxing citizens and spending tax dollar on foreign aid and that the United State should not be bound by international law. Mary asked a couple of days who the stupid people are, I know longer think they are all that hard to find. These people make Platt look reasonable and all of the arguments here seem like the meeting minutes of a mutual admiration society. 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