2

This question is prompted by an interesting comment discussion in a question I previously asked. Whereas nobody without proper mathematical training would attempt nowadays to do mathematics, it seems that many academics (not necessarily philosophers) venture to write about philosophy, such as Stephen Hawking saying it's dead.

How does contemporary meta-philosophy deal with this amount of written (presumably) philosophical work from non professional philosophers?

I'm specifically looking for the different trends/views, for example, maybe some "welcome" any philosophical writing, regardless of the writer's qualification, others defend that only philosophers (that is, academics with university-level philosophical education) should do philosophy, etc. Please let me know if instead this hasn't still been debated as of today as a proper meta-philosophical issue, and thus no paradigmatic views can be detailed.

EDIT: Maybe this is not an issue at all? If so, why and how is this justified within meta-philosophy?

  • 2
    There are always people proclaiming the death of philosophy. Many of them are philosophers. Socrates killed his tradition, and Plato came up with his theories. Aristotle killed Plato's theories and came up with his own. That's how it works. There's a similar tradition in poetry, painting, music and the rest. Criticism is usually a spring-board. – Ludwig V Mar 01 '23 at 18:53
  • One of the strongest trends in philosophy of the last hundred years has been the development of specializations. (The same is true in academia generally.) This is not necessarily a bad thing. What is a bad thing, especially in philosophy, is the development of silos. The idea of meta-philosophy seems to me an example. All philosophers need to develop or adopt a view about what philosophy is and how to do it. Those views need to be tested against philosophical practice. The same is true in music, poetry, and even science. – Ludwig V Mar 01 '23 at 19:00
  • 3
    Physicists, of all people, were "intruding" on philosophy for the entirety of modern times, just recall Newton, Mach, Bohr, Einstein, Bohm or Penrose. "Proper training" is familiarity with a discourse (and that is not lacking when the discourse is science, as in Hawking's case) and ability to reason (which scientists are also trained to do). Just the same, physicists "professionally intruded" on mathematics since 1990s, with new areas of algebraic geometry and differential topology springing out of it. Witten even got the highest mathematical award, Fields medal, for his part. – Conifold Mar 01 '23 at 19:01
  • @LudwigV What do you mean when you say that meta-philosophy is a silo? Why isn't metaphysics, for example, a silo? –  Mar 01 '23 at 19:14
  • I wasn't altogether clear in what I said. Metaphysics, like most of the other specializations in philosophy isn't necessarily a silo. My point was that it can be. In my view, philosophy of science and of mathematics have become silos. Nor do I want to say that every philosopher should write about everything. But I do think that most philosophers do range across many specializations and that's a good thing. Philosophical problems are interconnected. – Ludwig V Mar 01 '23 at 19:57
  • @Conifold Probably a worthwhile intrusion on the part of the physicists, since theories of knowledge and existence before physics was rather speculative... – Frank Mar 01 '23 at 20:47
  • But are physicists etc etc really "intruding" as much as encountering problems that may be of interest to philosophers? I'm not sure any physicist would venture to teach a philosophy class, but they may have things to discuss with philosophers. – Frank Mar 01 '23 at 20:53
  • 1
    There was a time not long ago when there was an active debate about the differences between knowledge in different disciplines. I thought this was real and important and just the sort of thing that philosophy should be doing. Sadly, as philosophy of science developed into its own specialization, that debate seems to have stalled. I think that's a great pity. What's left of epistemology at present feels like a sad rump. – Ludwig V Mar 01 '23 at 21:26
  • 2
    It's important to remember, that just as a philosopher talking about science should know something about it, so a scientist talking about philosophy should know something about that. It's a matter of what people know, what skills they have and so forth, not of discipline differences. – Ludwig V Mar 01 '23 at 21:28
  • 1
    Hawking: "Philosophy is dead". Philosophy: "Not while you make it". Feynman: "Philosophy is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds". Philosophy: "Though, a large part of your writings is the finest philosophical material on Quantum Mechanics ever". – RodolfoAP Mar 01 '23 at 22:12
  • @LudwigV Thank you for the insights. I've borrowed a comment above for answering my own previous question which prompted this one, hope you don't mind. I warn you here because I'm not sure if mentions work in answers. –  Mar 02 '23 at 09:42
  • Turn on one of many news channels and you'll see many non-scientists trying to contribute to scientific knowledge (or, rather, mostly simply trying to assert what scientific knowledge is), usually by saying very foolish and ignorant things. Non-philosophers can say foolish or wise things about philosophy, just as non-biologists can say foolish or wise things about biology. Although the barrier of entry to philosophy is lower and doesn't require equipment or studies. The sciences also tend to carry stronger emotional appeal, so ignorant people are more likely to have strong opinions on it. – NotThatGuy Mar 02 '23 at 10:28
  • I'm glad I could help. You acknowledge your borrowing and that's all I could possibly ask for. – Ludwig V Mar 02 '23 at 14:28

3 Answers3

5

Intrusion is a loaded word in this context, implying that philosophy is some private domain of a privileged few. Philosophy is not a regulated profession requiring mandatory qualifications; it is a field of study, parts of which present no discernible barriers to entry, so participation by amateurs is entirely natural.

Much of philosophy in practice is the study, assessment and re-interpretation of the work of other philosophers, notably stretching back a couple of millennia. Inevitably the focus of meta-philosophy will be on the works of prominent philosophers, much as the study of politics will focus on major political figures rather than the political opinions of the man or woman on the street.

Marco Ocram
  • 8,686
  • 1
  • 8
  • 28
  • 1
    I am certain. By regulated profession, I meant one subject to legal regulations, such as medicine. – Marco Ocram Mar 01 '23 at 21:49
  • I mean that anyone is entitled to express a view. In the case of certain subjects, it is possible for one's view to be proven right or wrong- but philosophy is one of many fields in which much of what is said is ultimately a matter of opinion, so the amateur may feel justified in sharing their own opinions rather than merely venerating those of the professionals. – Marco Ocram Mar 01 '23 at 22:48
  • 3
    I mean, if you are a decent person, you should be able to listen to reasonable ideas coming from any quarter ("reasonable" being the operative word here - I didn't say that you have to listen to everything and anything). In particular in philosophy, I don't know if you should reject anybody's ideas off-hand just because they are not "trained philosophers". What's more, I'm convinced that being a "trained philosopher" doesn't equate with making all your productions worthwhile. – Frank Mar 01 '23 at 22:54
2

I'm not a metaphilosopher, so my response is based on An Introduction to Metaphilosophy (GB) by Overgaard et al. (the Authors). The question strikes me as analogous to the question of what constitutes a scientific theory, the demarcation problem. I'm going to attempt to describe the Authors' analysis as a response to suggest an answer to the question.

First and foremost, metaphilosophers are obviously interested in answering the question 'What is philosophy?', and their method is comparative. "Chapter 2: What is philosophy?" conducts a survey to establish a taxonomy of approaches to answering the question. In doing so, they are answer "What is philosophy?" as descriptivists and not prescriptivists and in this regard are taking an empirical approach to philosophy. So we can say with certainty that metaphilosophy handles non-professional philosophers (NPPs) as an empirical reality.

Reading the chapter, however, one sees that the chapter is not organized by individuals, but rather by types of metaphilosophical theories. So, if NPPs are treated as an empirical reality and taken seriously as contributors, the Authors are included in the taxonomy based on their claims. While they don't say it, I think implicit in their categorization is to admit the principle that a person should be categorized on the basis of their philosophical thought, not their credentials. That being said, I don't see any NPPs referenced in the chapter at all. It's the heavyweights such as Plato, Ryle, Carnap, Quine, Wittgenstein, as well as more contemporaneously recognized thinkers such as Hacker and McGinn.

So, the next place to visit the Authors' assessment is the bibliography. Again, it's a who's who of philosophers, but few NPPs. Richard Feynman and Thomas Kuhn are included (the former a physicist and later a historian by education), but the list looks rather bereft of even big names that are normally thrown in discourse such as Hawking, Penrose, Harris, and Chomsky. I think we can take this as a sign that metaphilosophers as a practical matter acknowledge that many NPPs lack the formal education to speak authoritatively on metaphilosophical matters (in contradistinction to metaphysical matters). Sure, Chomsky can more than hold his own in a debate about philosophy of language (he did revolutionize it) and philosophy of mind, but he may not have the expertise to compare and contrast 2,500 years of philosophical literature, especially given his preoccupations with political philosophy.

So, I think it's fair to say that philosophers in general brush off "intrusitve" pronouncements about philosophy (I always use Bill Nye sticking his foot in his mouth as a short-hand for these "intrusions") because they're so poorly constructed and ignorant of philosophy, that metaphilosophers, who make a practice of evaluating philosophers, especially the world's greatest, consider such "intrusions" a minor feature of their theorization. But then, I'm not a metaphilosopher and am drawing conclusions based on a single volume (which as far as I can tell seems to be the authoritative work given the recent emergence of the discipline).

J D
  • 19,541
  • 3
  • 18
  • 83
  • Thank you very much for the book overview, indeed it's a pretty recent area. I will wait a few days to see if anyone has a different opinion. It's surprising though how NPPs can be as good as professional philosophers (PPs) on metaphysics and philosophies-of-*, but seem poor at meta-philosophy. Why would that be? –  Mar 01 '23 at 18:51
  • 1
    Vocabulary. An NPP would develop expertise in mapping the vocabulary of a domain, say mathematics, to that of philosophy. But a metaphilosopher (MP) would have an interest that lends to comparing and contrasting among various theories of philosophy. Thus an NPP would be good at using theory-specific language, but an MP would be good at using inter- rather than intratheoretical language. It's about where one spends one's time in accumulating semantic expertise. Philosophers debate coherentism, deflation, and correspondence, so abstracting from a variety of theses those is meta... – J D Mar 01 '23 at 19:46
  • 1
    in a way taking a domain-specific philosophical position (say that of neoPlatonism in mathematics) isn't. At least that's my take with my preoccupation on the philosophy of language. :D And by all means, please leave it open as long as it takes to satisfy your sense that your question has been offered. The defeasibility of reason is unavoidable, and I'm just as curious as you to see if there's a broader or better solution. – J D Mar 01 '23 at 19:49
  • 2
    The answer to your question about NPPs is probably that they don't know enough about philosophy. – Ludwig V Mar 01 '23 at 19:59
1

Two cents.

No matter the field or discipline that one is pursuing, one is bound to come at philosophical questions and, in the final analysis, philosophize.

Philosophical issues are at the core of any practice, investigation or speculation in any field, even in everyday life.

That is why the highest title in education is called Ph.D. ie Doctor of Philosophy.

Nikos M.
  • 2,113
  • 1
  • 11
  • 18
  • I like the approach you take in your answer, however, are you sure that Ph.D. is used because of that and not a historical reason? –  Mar 04 '23 at 12:38
  • 1
    The historical reason is that all knowledge was considered part of philosophy. But that is not very far from the truth. Philosophy is the start of many fields which later became somewhat autonomous, but still philosophical issues are at the core of the field. – Nikos M. Mar 04 '23 at 12:44