and watch where it goes
"Too many philosophers...are content to simply invent the facts when they need factual claims to buttress their philosophical arguments." (Stephen Stich, pg 178, A Very Bad Wizard)
"Findings in experimental philosophy undermine a major methodology that philosophers have been using for a very long time...It's the method of supporting philosophical theories using intuitions." (Ibid, 179)
"For centuries, philosophers have been basing their theories on intuition without ever having asked why that's a legitimate thing to do." (Ibid, pg 181)
Too true, if somewhat (possibly totally) overstated. Firstly, there has been a substantial shift in philosophical methods that he's underestimating. It may be still be the case that philosophers use intuition to, err, intuit philosophical theories/concepts/structures; but
a) they admit that it's intuitive and subjective and such;
b) far far fewer (atleast credible) philosophers are willing to push the line that their intuition is universal. Many MANY philosophers are leery of intuitions altogether - it's viewed in many circles as being intellectual suspect, especially among the younger generation. Intuition head-butting is more common than Stitch supposes.
(sidenote: my intuition head-butting: internalism and externalism in moral motivation. I've always been a weak quasi-Humean externalist; my only support for this is that I can intuit a mentally coherent someone who can both see and understand the morality of an action, and yet be completely unmotivated to perform that action. Timothy Scriven, on the other hand, cannot conceive of this; he thinks that such a person is necessarily mentally incoherent. We have no real way around this; this is an intuitional impasse that I cannot see a way around.)
How this relates to the continental-analytic 'divide':
Continentals MAKE SHIT UP (short version).
Long version: Continental and analytics both make shit up. However, what analytics try to or should do or what the mission statement should be is: let us start with the facts. What we know for sure. What can establish clearly and correctly. Analytics try to build up: let us take what we know for sure, then attach further claims on top. What us analytics (us right-thinking, non-craven analytics) are afraid of is that continentals make empirical claims, without, well, the empirical justification. Don't get me wrong, us analytics aren't much better at it; our making-up-shit tendencies are just as fully developed as any other academic field. But that doesn't get the continentals off the hook.
A little bit more: there's also a pretty common metalogical rule that comes into play here, namely the whole 'you can't disprove a negative' business. If you have a claim, you have to have evidence for it; otherwise you can't advance that claim. Which is why most analytics tend to say less rather than more, and why they are skeptical of the kinds of claims continentals make. You need to point out as clear as possible the mechanisms for how certain claims support certain conclusions; the onus in the claimant to do so.
I realise i'm repeating myself a lot, but you know, trying to make a point here.
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4 comments:
I think of a lot of continental work as the building of simple mental models, that live or die based on their ability to explain the world as we perceive it, and provide insight. The model itself does not require any justification - other than to add to it's empirical claims.
It's like guess and check, essentially.
blergh! rishi, why do you make me angry?
a/ there are no 'facts'.
b/ even if there were - which there are not - analytical philosophy is no more 'true' than continental philosophy. or rather, there is no actual way we could measure the "truth value" of either's claims.
c/ essentially, you're just arguing that analytics are inductive and continentals are deductive, which i think might be your way of saying analytical philosophy is more scientific. and that's...dubious at best.
p.s. lol. "truth value".
Yeah, I kind of like the guess and check explanation.
Semantic note: I never used the term "truth value", so i'm not sure who you're quoting there. Feel free to elaborate.
a) i'm fine with the idea of not having 'facts' in that sense, but surely you're not disputing the idea of proximate or scientific facts? Something like, 'this is a fact (to the best of our knowledge, until further developments occur, etc etc)'
W/r/t to point b...yeah. I remember reading this great essay by I can't remember who now, which had this lovely point about how much philosophers argue over the basic veracity and consistency of thinkers throughout the ages: we still argue whether Hobbes or Hume or Plato was 'right' or 'wrong' in any substantial way. We can't even seem to agree what those individual thinkers said within their own texts! But i'm going to refer back to point a), namely that it's possible to have proximate 'truths', and that it's possible to use to proximate 'truths' to 'measure' claims.
And yeah, in kind of a roundabout way I am arguing that inductive/deductive divide...But really, all I think I want to say is, let's have science and evidence and what not. Everywhere, all the time.
"truth value" was my attempt to 'continentalise' my vocabulary so you would be angry. i guess this only works on ed...
and, okay, clarification: there can be no 'facts' that we can positively identify as being 'true'. yes, we can verify them scientifically, but no, we may not ever actually 'know' whether or not they are. so...yes. i am agreeing with you on your point of proximate 'truths' and measurable claims.
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