I’ve been reading a lot of comments on articles about philosophy and science that seem to be seeking the worth of philosophy in whether or not it currently contributes anything substantive to the natural sciences. While I expect this from those who are aiming to show that philosophy is obsolete, I’m puzzled by the many defenders of philosophy who also follow this path, thereby reifying the idea that science is the be-all and end-all of intellectual inquiry – essentially saying that if a discipline is a science, it’s good, and if it’s not, it’s bad.
But philosophy’s contribution to science isn’t that it helps us find answers to specific physical questions. Its contribution isn’t that it performs scientific inquiry, its contribution is that scientific inquiry exists at all. Philosophy isn’t worthwhile because it can do what science does, it’s worthwhile because it gave us science.
That doesn’t mean, as many claim, that it’s job is over. It continues to look for new ways of thinking about causality, about subjectivity, and about bridging interdisciplinary gaps. Philosophy also gave us theology, psychology, aesthetics, logic, music theory, and more, and all of these disciplines are hugely important because they can discover things that philosophy cannot. But these discoveries don’t supplant philosophy, they actually make philosophy better.
Instead of thinking of the value of academic disciplines as a continuum that starts out at “fruitless” and culminates in “science”, I prefer to think in terms of an orchard. An orchard starts with good, fertile soil, full of possibilities. Some of these possibilities will be realized, and some will fail to find a legitimate seed, or even if they don’t, they won’t receive enough sunlight, good air, and water. But many will grow into trees which will someday bear nutritious and delicious fruit. And the fruit will be what matters, because it is what is useful, and we will value the trees because they bear the fruit, and the sun and the air and the water because those are elements we can see and feel and understand easily.
But that doesn’t mean we can forget the soil, because it’s also important. We cannot just grow trees and say that the soil has done its job and so we no longer need it. We cannot do away with the soil and expect the trees to still bear fruit.
Luckily, the soil can be nourished, either by external care or by its own offspring, reincorporating fallen fruit that failed to be productive, or by trying something new (crop rotation is the metaphor here). Philosophy can gather false-starts in science and psychology and other disciplines, and evaluate where they went wrong, taking their assumptions and reorganizing them in case there’s something to salvage, some remaining possibility, or if there’s potentially some trouble ahead for other fruit which seems – so far – to be safe and sound.
The point is that no one begrudges the soil for not producing fruit without the tree. The tree, the fruit, the sun, the water, the soil, the air, the seeds – they all work in a relationship. We don’t need to pick one at the expense of the other. Why then do we feel the need to pit science and philosophy against each other? Yes, philosophy by itself teams with sometimes fruitless unrealized possibility (and I so love this possibility), but science that neglects philosophy will eventually reach its limits. It’s only when we confuse the goals of the two that one or both will undoubtedly fail, but it’s not a necessary confusion.
I don’t need philosophy to beat science at its own game, and no, I don’t know what philosophy will contribute next. I’m ok with that. I think it’s enough to try and keep the soil nourished and full of possibility, supporting other disciplines in their theoretical approaches and assumptions, and hopefully – if we can find just the right seeds – giving rise to new ones too.
Stories & Soliloquies 
28 thoughts on “Philosophy: A Fruitless Endeavor?”
whitefrozen
“Philosophy hasn’t made any progress? – If somebody scratches the spot where he has an itch, do we have to see some progress? Isn’t genuine scratching otherwise, or genuine itching itching? And can’t this reaction to an irritation continue in the same way for a long time before a cure for the itching is discovered?”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value
Michelle Joelle
As always, Wittgenstein is both edifying and confusing.
James Pailly
Ever since Neil deGrass Tyson’s comment about how philosophy is a waste of time, this seems to be a hot issue. As usual, you’ve addressed it in a most elegant way. Your orchard metaphor is just perfect.
Michelle Joelle
Thank you so much. If nothing else NdGT gave us occasion to air our tacit angst! I’m glad you liked the metaphor – I toyed with a few different versions, but I think philosophy as fertile soil felt right.
James Pailly
It certainly does.
Rchard E. Hennessey
I enjoyed the post. I wonder, though, how you would answer the following question. Do you see philosophy as a discipline having its own specific subject, about which it and no other discipline is?
guymax
Richard – if I may give my answer, then it would be yes. Metaphysics would be one such subject.
It seems to me that some people are confusing philosophy of science with the whole of philosophy. If this is not the explanation, then the entire current debate is utterly beyond my comprehension. I assume, and would say ‘naturally’, that someone who thinks philosophy is useless is useless at doing it and not afraid to admit it.
Michelle Joelle
In addition to what Guymax says – this confusion is exactly what I meant to point out – I have a two part answer to this:
1) Yes of course! Practically speaking, it makes the most sense to break things down into isolated questions that can be tackled in a reasonable way. Metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, ethics (especially meta-ethics), prose logic, meta-logic – any subject matter which takes a step back and looks at core assumptions, rather than starting with them as given and going on from there.
2) No, of course not – any more than any subject can really lay claim to have exclusive rights to any specific subject. If you’re trying to do philosophy, you’ll find yourself at times relying on literary sensibilities (it is writing, after all), but if you’re trying to do literary critique, you might very find yourself doing psychology, which will rely on biology, which you can’t do without involving chemistry, which some say is just macro-cosmic physics, and then you’re running into math, which raises questions about the relationship between logic and observation, and before you know it, you’re back into philosophy again. And all of it occurs in a political, sociological, historical, anthropological context (and more).
So on a practical level, it’s impossible to tackle a fully comprehensive project without a truly remarkable level of genius – nothing short of Thomas’ angelic intellect will do! These are, of course, necessary divisions, but on a deeper level, these divisions are just functions of our subjective limitations, and they’e not set in stone. They’ve changed numerous times over the course of history, and I expect they’ll continue to do so. The relationships between disciplines isn’t neat and clear, either – you could feasibly arrange a Kevin Bacon-esque game centered with nearly any academic subject. The connections are rhizomatic, at best.
guymax
Some nice points Michelle.
SAP- Pardon the self-promotion, but did you read my essay ‘Is Metaphysics a Waste of Time’. If you want a prominent example of philosophers shooting themselves in the foot on this issue you couldn’t do better. No need to read it all, just sklm through the quotations and be amazed. .
SelfAwarePatterns
Reblogged this on SelfAwarePatterns.
SelfAwarePatterns
A very nice essay. I’ll own up to falling into the trap you describe, focusing too much on philosophical conclusions as opposed to scientific ones, rather than on the questions, the framework, the mind-set. (I’m still happy with what I said. I just wish I had said more.)
In my defense, its a trap many philosophers fall into themselves. It’s actually a trap many people fall into who don’t even realize that they’re doing philosophy.
Michelle Joelle
I fall into the trap too – I actually think it’s ok to get caught up in it, so long as you’re aware that’s what’s happening. I think you can learn a lot that way, even if you have to stop and remind yourself that the rewards you earn fit into a larger context that may or may not support you as well as you hope. It’s definitely difficult – I get swept away all the time!
guymax
Oh yes! I was trapped in the trap for years (if I get what you mean). This was before I started studying, but I did think about philosophy. You look around, you see that the experts cannot solve the problem of philosophy, and you assume, after all these centuries, that they cannot be solved.
It is a very sensible assumption. Except for one thing, which is that the experts we are consulting are not experts. They cannot solve the problems. It came as shock at age fifty to realise that these problems do not arise for a philosophy of unity, and that this has been known for thousands of years. It cannot be a coincidence that this is the only philosophical view that is considered heretical in western academic philosophy, and that this philosophy never makes any progress from one millennium to the next.
qwerqsar
Example for the necessity of philosophy? Well, there is World War 2! Mass production and eugenics had reached such a state, that it was easy to justify atrocities in name of sciene. Where do we stop, if science allows us to do everything. This alone revives the ethical questions in philosophy. Further examples exist, but cold knowledge does not help at all if the human is left out of the equation, and we are a complex thing beyond biology. Thus philosophy simply can’t become unneccesary or even obsolete. Reading the Frankfurt school of thought alone shows how humans can degenarate for having overconfidence in science.
Michelle Joelle
Thank you for the comment – this is a point that Feynman makes in a couple of essays too, so it comes from both “sides”. I like the term “scientism” for that overconfidence.
tienzengong
Michelle Joelle: “But philosophy’s contribution to science isn’t that it helps us find answers to specific physical questions. Its contribution isn’t that it performs scientific inquiry, its contribution is that scientific inquiry exists at all. Philosophy isn’t worthwhile because it can do what science does, it’s worthwhile because it gave us science.”
Excellent point, agree with it 100%. Yet, I do have some sympathy to the feeling that philosophy is no longer useful in terms of the works from the professional philosophers. But, if we enlarge our view-scope beyond the narrow patch of academic philosophy in the ‘West’, we can show that ‘philosophizing’ is still the most powerful tool. I will just show one simple example below.
The ‘mission’ of String-theory (physics) is for getting the ‘string-unification’, the reproducing the known Standard Model particles (at least, the 48 matter particles). Yet, it failed dismally after 45 years of intense research by thousands of the top physicists. But, when we go beyond the science epistemology, we are able to get a ‘string-unification’ by philosophizing a ‘language’ (not a theory). The following is the ‘string-unification’ language, derived fully via philosophizing, not from science.
A G-string language (symbolic representation) consists of three different line-strings (vocabulary). And, each string carries a (½ ħ).
Line-string (1) = (r, y, b 1)
Line-string (2) = (r, y, b 2)
Line-string (3) = (r, y, b 3)
Every line-string has three nodes (or chairs), and each node can be symbolically represented with two symbols, V and A (alphabets).
V is transparent and carries 0 electric charges.
A is opaque and carries 1/3 electric charge.
With them, there are some rules (theorems or grammar) for this language system.
1. (V, V, V) = (r, y, b) = white = colorless, as V is transparent.
2. (A, A, A) = colorless = white, as A is opaque.
3. (V, A, A) = (r, A, A) = red, (A, V, A) = yellow, (A, A, V) = blue
4, (V, V, A) = (r, y, A) = blue (complement of r + Y)
With the above language, all 48 known quark/lepton particles can be ‘described’, as below,
String 1 = (V, A, A 1) = {1st , red, 2/3 e, ½ ħ} = red up quark.
String 2 = (-A, V, V 1) = {1st , red, -1/3 e, ½ ħ} = red down quark.
String 3 = (A, A, V 1) = {1st , blue, 2/3 e, ½ ħ} = blue up quark.
…
String 7 = (A, A, A 1) = {1st, white (colorless), 1 e, ½ ħ} = e (electron).
String 8 = (V, V, V 1) = {1st, white, 0 e, ½ ħ} = e-neutrino.
String 9 = (V, A, A 2) = {2nd , red, 2/3 e, ½ ħ} = red charm quark.
…
String 48 = -(V, V, V 3) = – {3rd, white, 0 e, ½ ħ} = anti-tau-neutrino.
Can the above verified in physics? Again, this is the place to show that philosophy is much more powerful than science (physics, in this case).
A system or a theory of physics is, in general, described with a ‘language’ (an equation or a set of equations). When the language is verified, the theory which is described by that language must be ‘necessary true’. On the same token, when a theory (or a system) is known true, then the language which describes it is also ‘necessary’ true.
Although the SM is known to be not complete, but its quark/lepton structure is accepted as a fact of nature. Thus, its ‘describing’ language (not a theory) must be ‘necessary true’, and there can be no argument about it. Are physicists ever able to probe the meaning of those symbolic alphabets (V and A)? This is really a non-issue, as it is only a ‘language’, not a theory.
This one simple example shows that the capability of science is definitely ‘limited’ while many other pathways not only can produce new knowledge but is able to provide its own verification.
Michelle Joelle
Thank you for such a rich comment! String theory is an area where the math gets a bit beyond my capabilities, but I’m intrigued by your discussion of the relationship between language and theory – I’ll have to ponder it some more before I can come up with something substantive.
agrudzinsky
It takes a philosopher to realize that philosophy is a fruitless endeavor.
Michelle Joelle
It’s no coincidence that the best critiques of philosophy are in themselves philosophical. It’s like a necessary performative contradiction!
Abby Boid
Found this blog vis the writing 101. Glad I did – it looks most interesting. Looking forward to reading more.
Michelle Joelle
Glad to have you! I love clicking through the comments of big posts to find new reads 🙂
Zachary Guinn
“Philosophy is a useless discipline” is a philosophical statement. I always find it funny, how both those trained and untrained in Philosophy make these sorts of self-refuting statements all the time.
“There are no absolute truths” is itself an absolute truth and so the Postmoderns fall into that trap. Hawking wrote a whole book where he claimed “Philosophy was dead” and that book was on Metaphysics.
I wonder if this is a problem of language, or a problem of distinction? (Ie. Do we do this because we use language and language naturally has these limitations, or do we simply not think enough about our language to be distinct with it?)
Michelle Joelle
The Hawking example always makes me smile, because he literally follows his “Philosophy is dead” with a veritable ode to Philosophy. It’s essentially – Philosophy is dead! Long live philosophy!
I think you’re right that it’s in part due to language. How else could anyone love wisdom and actively seek it with every possible tool available and claim to “hate philosophy” at the same time? What they’re really saying is “I hate these particular kinds of philosophers” while ignoring the vast array of other kinds of philosophers.
Zachary Guinn
He seems to have a problem only with Philosophers that posit efficient causes. (To which I would ask him how his book came into being…) He only seems to believe in material causes. It’s as if he’s ringing the death knoll of efficient causes, and rejoicing in the start of the reign of Material Causes.
But overall, I really loved your post. Soil is absolutely important, people often forget that logic is required for ALL disciplines, and so much is required for their basic assumptions. It’s a shame…
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bkpyett
Thank you for visiting my blog, as it’s led me to yours. I shall enjoy following to see what other wonderful things you post! I enjoyed your philosophical discourse! ❤
Michelle Joelle
Thank you too! I love finding new blogs, and I’m so happy you’re enjoying mine!